$^:. 


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TWENTIETH  CENTURY  TEXT-BOOKS 


CLASSICAL    SECTION 

EDITED    BY 

JOHN  H.  WRIGHT,  Harvard  University 

BERNADOTTE   PERRIN,       Yale  University 
ANDREW  F.  WEST,  Princeton  University 


HOMER. 

Ideal  bust  in  the  museum  at  Naples. 


TWENTIETH  CENTURY  TEXT-BOOKS 


A  HISTORY  OF  ANCIENT 
GREEK  LITERATURE 


BY 

HAROLD   N.  FOWLER,    Ph.  D. 

PROFESSOR     IN    THE    COLLEGE    FOR    WOMEN    OF 
WESTERN     RESERVE    UNIVERSITY 


OF  THf    ;  • 

UNIVERSITY 


NEW     YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1902 


^4- 


I* 


Copyright,  1902 
By   D.    APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 


GENERAL 


Published  February,  1902 


F7     • 


PREFACE 


This  book  is  intended  primarily  for  use  in  secondary 
schools  and  colleges,  but  may  perhaps  be  of  some  interest 
to  the  general  reading  public.  Its  readers  are  therefore 
likely  to  be  of  various  ages  and  to  differ  widely  in  their 
previous  training.  So  far  as  the  general  reading  public  is 
concerned,  since  each  person  will  use  the  book  as  he  thinks 
best,  no  advice  from  me  is  required  ;  but  a  few  words  con- 
cerning its  use  in  schools  and  colleges  may  not  be  out  of 
place. 

The  book  contains  little  or  nothing  which  should  not  be 
familiar  to  every  educated  man  and  woman.  The  college 
student  should  therefore  be  expected  to  use  it  all,  though 
more  time  should  of  course  be  spent  in  the  study  of  the 
chapters  on  the  greatest  writers  than  in  learning  about  the 
authors  of  less  importance.  The  pupil  in  the  secondary 
school,  however,  may  not  always  have  the  time  to  pay  any 
attention  to  the  less  important  Greek  authors.  It  may 
therefore  be  in  many  instances  desirable  to  stop  the  class- 
room use  of  the  book  at  the  end  of  the  Attic  period,  adding 
only  enough  from  the  later  parts  to  make  the  pupils  ac- 
quainted with  Theocritus,  Callimachus,  Apollonius  Khodius 
(especially  if  the  pupils  have  read  or  are  to  read  Virgil), 
Polybius,  Plutarch,  and  Lucian.  In  the  case  of  immature 
pupils,  it  may  be  well  to  omit  the  chapter  on  the  Homeric 
Question,  and  even  the  chapters  on  the  early  prose  writers. 

Far  the  greater  part  of  the  book  is  taken  up  with  the 
history  of  Greek  literature  before  the  Alexandrian  period. 


Hin-lfiyl^ 


Vl  GREEK  LITERATURE 

This  is  desirable,  because  the  works  of  the  Alexandrian  and 
Koman  times  are  lost  for  the  most  part  and  never  possessed 
the  literary  importance  of  the  great  writings  of  the  earlier 
days.  On  the  other  hand,  the  writings  of  the  later  times 
are  too  important  to  be  altogether  overlooked.  Koman  lit- 
erature was  most  powerfully  influenced  by  Alexandrian  lit- 
erature, and  has  in  turn  exerted  a  most  powerful  influence 
upon  the  literature  of  all  later  times. '  A  summary  account 
of  Alexandrian  and  Graeco-Roman  literature  is  thereforejn- 
cluded  in  this  book,  in  the  belief  that  our  students  should 
not  be  allowed  to  forget  that  Greek  life  and  thought  con- 
tinued to  influence  the  world  long  after  the  political  inde- 
pendence of  Greece  came  to  an  end.  For  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar reason — to  call  attention  to  the  influence  of  Greek 
thought,  Greek  education,  and  Greek  writers  upon  the 
progress  of  Christianity — an  account  of  some  of  the  Chris- 
tian writers  has  been  included. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  book  I  have  made  the  greatest 
use  of  the  Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Grecque,  by  the 
brothers  Alfred  and  Maurice  Croiset.  The  Manuel  d' His- 
toire de  la  Litterature  Grecque,  by  the  same  authors,  has 
also  been  of  great  service.  The  Geschichte  der  Griechischen 
Litter  atur,  by  Wilhelm  Christ,  has  been  especially  valuable 
for  the  statistical  information  it  contains.  All  the  other 
general  works  cited  in  the  Bibliographical  Appendix  have 
been  consulted,  as  well  as  numerous  books  and  special  ar- 
ticles not  there  mentioned.  The  judgments  expressed  in 
regard  to  the  merits  and  peculiarities  of  individual  writers 
are  based  upon  my  own  reading  of  their  works,  but  the 
manner  of  expression  has  been  much  influenced  by  what 
other  historians  of  Greek  literature  have  said.  In  the 
spelling  of  proper  names  I  have  tried  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  best  English  writers,  and  have  therefore  adopted  in 
most  instances  the  Latin  spelling. 

The  Bibliographical  Appendix  will,  I  hope,  be  found  use- 
ful.   It  is  by  no  means  exhaustive,  but  may  serve  as  a  guide 


PREFACE  vn 

to  those  who  have  not  access  to  libraries.  The  purpose  of 
the  Chronological  Appendix  is  not  so  much  to  serve  as  a 
finding-list  of  dates  as  to  show  at  a  glance  what  authors 
were  living  and  working  at  any  given  time.  In  the  general 
index  the  names  of  all  Greek  writers  mentioned  in  the  book 
are  to  be  found,  together  with  references  to  numerous 
topics  and  to  some  of  the  more  important  mythological 
and  historical  persons.  The  pronunciation  of  proper  names 
is  marked  in  the  index. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  Perrin  and  Professor 
Wright  for  many  valuable  suggestions  made  before  the 
manuscript  was  sent  to  the  printer,  and  for  patient  care  in 
reading  the  proof  and  suggesting  needed  changes. 

Harold  N.  Fowler. 
Cleveland,  Ohio. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — Introduction 1 

II. — The  Homeric  poems 10 

III. — The  Homeric  question 23 

IV. — The     Epic     Cycle — Sportive    poems— The    Homeric 

hymns     .        .        . 35 

V. — Hesiod — Didactic  and  genealogical  poems  ...  49 

VI. — Lyric  poetry — Elegiac  poetry 58 

VII. — Iambic  poetry — Beast-fables 79 

VIII. — Greek  music — Monodic  and  choral  poetry          .        .  87 

IX.— Choral  lyric  poetry 105 

X. — Choral  lyric  poetry  (continued) 119 

XL — Choral  lyric  poetry — Pindar 129 

XII. — Religious,  oracular,  and  mystic  poetry      .        .        .  140 
XIII. — The    beginnings    of    prose    literature — The    early 

PHILOSOPHERS 147 

XIV. — The  logographers .        .  165 

__ XV.— Herodotus          . 170 

XVI.— Origin  and  development  of  the  drama        .        .        .  179 

XV1L— ^Eschylus 189 

XVIIL— Sophocles .        .202 

XIX.— Euripides 219 

XX. — Minor  tragic  poets 241 

XXL— The  Old  Comedy — Aristophanes   .        .        .        .        .  247 

XXII. — Comedy  after  the  fifth  century 259 

XXIII. — Epic  and  lyric  poetry  of  the  Attic  period       .        .  267 

XXIV.— Attic  prose — Thucydides 271 

XXV. — Xenophon  and  other  historians 279 

ix 


GREEK  LITERATURE 

CHAPTER                                                                                •  PAGE 

XXVI. — Attic    philosophy — The    sophists — Socrates    and 

HIS   FOLLOWERS 291 

XXVII.— Plato— The  Old  Academy 303 

XXVIIL— Aristotle— The  Peripatetics 313 

XXIX.— Attic  orators 322 

XXX.— Isocrates 333 

XXXI. — Demosthenes        .        .        .        #        .        .        .        .  340 

XXXII. — JEschines  and  other  orators 349 

XXXIII. — Philosophy  in  the  Alexandrian  period         .        .  357 

XXXIV. — Rhetoric  and  history  in  the  Alexandrian  period  369 

XXXV. — Alexandrian  poetry 381 

XXXVI. — The  transition  to  the  Roman  period     .        .        .  400 

XXXVII. — From  Augustus  to  Domitian 406 

XXXVIII. — Philosophy  in  the  second  century.        .        .        .  415 

XXXIX. — History — The  later  sophists 424 

XL. — The  novel — Poetry — Science — Philosophy — Chris- 
tian writers   .        .        ...        .        .        .  438 

XLI. — From  Constantine  to  Justinian       .        .        .  448 

Appendix    I. — Bibliography 462 

Appendix  II. — Chronological  table 480 

Index 487 


b 


list  of  illustrations 


FACING 
PAGE 


Homer,  Ideal  Bust  in  the  Naples  Museum       .        .       Frontispiece 
Anacreon,  from  a  Statue  in  the  Ny-Carlsberg  Museum  at  Copen- 
hagen   101 

Sophocles,  Statue  in  the  Lateran  Museum,  Rome  .        .        .        .202 

Plato,  Bust  in  the  Vatican  Museum,  Rome 303 

Demosthenes,  Statue  in  the  Vatican  Museum,  Rome     .        .        .    340 
The    Emperor    Julian,  Bust  on  the  top  of  the  Cathedral  at 

Acerenza 451 


OF  THE     r 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


BOOK  I 
TEE  EARLY  PERIOD 


CHAPTEE  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Importance  of  Greek  literature — The  Greek  language — Divisions 
and  periods — Character  of  the  periods — The  dialects — Preservation  of 
works  of  literature — Sources  of  information — The  earliest  poetry — The 
Muses — Mythical  poets :  Orpheus,  Linus,  Musaeus,  Eumolpus,  Pamphus, 
Olen — Helicon,  Delos,  Delphi. 

Anciekt  Greek  literature  is  one  of  the  most  precious 
parts  of  our  inheritance  from  past  time,  and  has  had  a  most 
T.    .  powerful   influence   upon    modern    literature, 

tance  of  modern  thought,  and,  in  general,  modern  civ- 

Greek  litera-  ilization.  This  is  due  not  merely  to  the  fact 
ture'  that  Greek  literature  is  the  earliest  well-devel- 

oped literature  we  know,  but  still  more  to  its  inherent  ex- 
cellence and  its  beauty  of  form  as  well  as  of  content,  which 
have  brought  it  about  that  for  two  thousand  years  literary 
expression  has  been  cast  in  Greek  moulds,  even  when  the 
writers  have  been  themselves  unconscious  of  that  fact.  The 
history  of  this  literature  can  therefore  hardly  fail  to  inter- 
est all  who  are  interested  in  modern  civilization,  whether 
they  are  able  to  read  the  Greek  language  or  not. 

The  Greeks,  or  Hellenes,  as  they  called  themselves,  spoke 
a  language  belonging  to  the  great  Aryan  or  Indo-European 
family  to  which  all  the  Germanic  languages,  including 
English,  also  belong.     English  is  therefore  akin  to  Greek, 

1 


2  GREEK  LITERATURE 

but  the  kinship  is  not  close,  and  though  we  can  see  that 

many  English  words  are  related  to  Greek  words,  still  the 

differences  between  the  two  languages  are  on 

The  Greek        ^e  whole  more  striking  than  the  resemblances. 

language.  • 

For  one  thing,  Greek  is  a  highly  inflected  lan- 
guage, showing  the  relations  between  words  by  means  of 
terminations  and  other  changes  of  form,  while  English 
shows  such  relations  for  the  most  part  by  means  of  preposi- 
tions and  other  words  invented  for  the  purpose,  and  by  a 
more  or  less  fixed  order  of  the  words  in  the  sentence.  In 
addition  to  inflectional  forms,  the  Greeks  also  employed 
prepositions  and  the  like,  and  their  language  abounds  with 
particles  to  express  different  varieties  of  emphasis  and  of 
relations  between  words  and  sentences.  Greek  is  therefore 
an  unusually  flexible  and  expressive  language,  wonderfully 
well  adapted  for  the  development  of  logical  thought,  poetic 
imagery,  and  literary  form.  These  characteristics  existed 
in  the  language  even  before  any  real  literature  came  into 
being,  but  grew  stronger  with  the  growth  of  literature. 

Greek  literature  has  been  continuous  from  very  early 
times  until  the  present,  but  as  a  matter  of  convenience  it 
Divisions  of  *s  divided  into  three  chief  divisions :  1.  The 
Greek  litera-  ancient  literature,  from  the  beginning  to  529 
ture-  A.  d.,  when  the   Emperor  Justinian   ordered 

the  schools  of  heathen  philosophy  to  be  closed.  2.  The 
middle  or  Byzantine  literature,  from  529  A.  D.  to  1453, 
when  Constantinople  was  captured  by  the  Turks.  3.  The 
modern  literature,  from  the  capture  of  Constantinople  in 
1453  to  the  present  time.  These  dates  are  given  only  for 
the  sake  of  convenience,  for  some  writers  before  529  A.  D. 
show  the  characteristics  of  the  Byzantine  period,  and  the 
beginnings  of  the  modern  literature  are  to  be  traced  for 
nearly  a  century  before  1453,  and  in  like  manner  some 
writers  of  these  periods  exhibit  the  characteristics  of  the 
period  before.  But  exact  dates  serve  to  fix  in  the  mind  the 
times  when  the  character  of  the  literature  was  changing 


INTRODUCTION  3 

and  to  connect  the  changes  in  literature  with  the  contem- 
poraneous changes  in  the  circumstances  of  life  and  thought. 

The  ancient  literature  is  the  only  one  of  the  three 
divisions  with  which  we  have  to  do  here.  This  we  may 
again  divide  into  three  periods,  each  of  which  runs  into  the 
next  with  no  sharp  dividing  line,  though  the  main  charac- 
teristics  of  each  are  clear  and  distinct :  1.  The 
ancient  early  period,  from  about  the  tenth  century  to 

Greek  litera-  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  b.  c.  2.  The 
ture-  Attic   period,  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries 

B.  c.  3.  The  period  of  literary  decadence,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  century  b.  c.  to  529  a.  d.  The  last  period 
is  further  subdivided  into  Alexandrian  literature,  lasting 
from  about  300  b.  c.  to  the  conquest  of  Greece  by  the 
Eomans  in  146  b.  c,  or,  better,  until  the  establishment  of 
the  Eoman  Empire  in  31  B.  c,  and  Graeco-Koman  literature, 
from  31  b.  c.  to  529  A.  d. 

Each  of  these  periods  is  distinguished  not  only  by 
chronological  sequence,  but  by  the  character  of  its  produc- 
tions and  the  dialect  or  dialects  in  which  those  productions 
Literary  are  composed.     So  the  early  period  sees  the 

character  of  growth  and  development  of  epic  poetry,  at  first 
the  periods.  }n  the  ^Eolic  dialect,  later  in  Ionic,  and  of  lyric 
poetry,  chiefly  in  the  Doric  and  ^Eolic  dialects.  Prose  writ- 
ing, in  Ionic  Greek,  also  begins  in  this  period.  The  Attic 
period  is  the  time  when  the  great  seat  of  literary  activity 
was  Athens.  In  this  period  dramatic  poetry,  both  tragic 
and  comic,  reaches  its  height,  and  prose  literature  is  devel- 
oped in  history,  philosophy,  and  oratory.  After  this  bril- 
liant period  the  Greeks  almost  cease  to  produce  works  of 
original  creative  genius,  and  literature  becomes  for  the 
most  part  either  learned  or  imitative.  The  prose  writers 
collect  the  doctrines  of  their  predecessors,  write  comments 
on  earlier  works  or  compose  learned  scientific  treatises, 
while  the  poets  copy  more  or  less  laboriously  the  style  and 
forms  of  expression  of  the  great  masters  of  earlier  days. 


4  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  prose  writing  of  this  period  is  in  great  measure  a  con- 
tinuation or  development  of  the  styles  which  originated  in 
the  Attic  period,  and  the  dialect  used  is  the  Attic  dialect 
with  some  modifications. 

The  iEolic  dialect,  spoken  in  Thessaly,  in  Boeotia,  on  the 
island  of  Lesbos,  and  in  the  iEolic  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  re- 
tained some  of  the  early  forms  of  the  Greek  language  longer 
than  did  the  other  dialects.  It  never  attained 
e  ia  eo  s.  ^jgh  development  as  a  literary  tongue  except 
in  lyric  poetry.  The  Doric  dialect,  spoken  in  Doris,  most  of 
the  Peloponnesus,  nearly  all  the  Sicilian  colonies,  and  many 
cities  in  Asia  Minor  and  elsewhere,  was  more  primitive  than 
the  others  in  its  sounds,  just  as  the  iEolic  was  in  its  forms. 
A  peculiarity  of  Doric  Greek  was  its  liking  for  the  broad 
a  sound.  Ionic  Greek,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dialect  of 
the  Ionic  colonies  of  Asia  Minor,  most  of  the  islands  of  the 
^Egean  Sea,  and  various  cities  in  other  regions,  preferred 
the  close  e  to  the  a  sound.  This  dialect  was  more  elegant 
than  either  ^Eolic  or  Doric.  It  was  the  dialect  of  the  de- 
veloped epic  poetry,  of  elegiac  verse,  and  of  the  earliest 
prose.  Attic  Greek  is  a  variety  of  the  Ionic  dialect  with 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Doric.  In  its  highest 
development,  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  b.  c,  it  was 
one  of  the  most  perfect  instruments  for  the  expression  of 
human  thought  ever  known.  The  influence  of  Attic  lit- 
erature was  so  great  that  the  Attic  dialect,  with  some  modi- 
fications, spread  all  over  the  Greek  world,  and,  under  the 
name  of  "  the  Common  Dialect,"  became  the  literary  lan- 
guage of  the  last  period  of  ancient  Greek  literature. 

Of  the  vast  body  of  Greek  literature  which  once  existed 
only  a  comparatively  small  part  has  been  preserved.  The 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  make  us  acquainted  with 
preservation  tne  early  epi°  poetry  at  its  best,  and  the  loss  of 
of  Greek  lit-  the  great  number  of  epics  is  therefore  less  to 
erature.  fa  regretted,  interesting  as  they  would  be  if 

they  had  been  preserved ;  but  of  the  early  lyric  poetry  much 


INTRODUCTION  5 

less  is  extant  than  of  epic  poetry,  some  of  the  most  famous 
poets  being  represented  only  by  a  few  detached  fragments 
of  verse.  The  earliest  attempts  to  write  prose  have  also 
been  lost.  The  works  of  the  great  writers  of  the  Attic 
period  are  better  preserved  than  are  the  earlier  writings, 
but  the  second-  and  third-class  writers  are  hardly  known  to 
us  at  all,  and  of  the  works  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  fifth 
century  only  a  small  part  (though  perhaps  the  best  part) 
has  been  handed  down  through  the  lapse  of  centuries. 
Many  writings  of  the  period  of  literary  decadence  have  been 
preserved,  but  a  much  greater  number  has  been  lost.  The 
survival  of  the  works  of  the  earlier  periods  is  due  chiefly  to 
the  Alexandrian  and  later  scholars,  who  made  a  selection 
of  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  literature,  choosing  them  from 
the  great  number  of  works  existing  in  their  day. 

It  results  from  the  imperfect  preservation  of  Greek  lit- 
erature that  our  knowledge  of  its  history  must  be  some- 
what fragmentary.  Some  writers  are  known  to  us  by  their 
Sources  of  works,  about  whose  lives  we  have  no  trustwor- 
our  informa-  thy  information,  while  facts  are  recorded  about 
tlon'  •  the  lives  of  others  whose  works  have  perished. 
In  general,  our  knowledge  comes  from  the  works  of  the 
authors  themselves,  from  references  to  them  in  the  works 
of  their  contemporaries,  from  accounts  of  their  lives  and 
works  written  in  later  times,  and  from  notes,  called  scholia, 
written  in  ancient  editions  of  their  works.1  Comparatively 
few  authors  are  mentioned  by  their  contemporaries,  so  that 
most  of  our  information  is  derived  from  the  works  of  the 

T  „  authors  themselves  or  from  "  lives  "  and  com- 

Information  .  . 

from  the  mentaries  written  centuries  after  their  death, 

authors'  own  Few  Greek  authors  wrote  with  the  intention 
works.  0£  recor(jmg  the  facts  of  their  own  lives  ;  hence 

the  information  we  derive  from  their  works  has  to  be  gath- 
ered from  casual  remarks  which  show  that  the  writer  was 

1  Occasionally  an  author  is  mentioned  in  an  inscription,  but  seldom 
in  such  a  way  as  to  give  much  information. 


6  GREEK  LITERATURE 

present  on  such  and  such  an  occasion,  or  had  visited  such 
and  such  a  place,  or  the  like.  What  information  we  can 
glean  in  this  way  is  valuable,  for  we  obtain  it  at  first  hand 
and  can  be  sure  that  it  has  not  been  falsified  in  any  way, 
but  it  is  very  fragmentary.  On  the  other  hand,  the  exist- 
ing biographies  of  Greek  authors  are  all  of  late  date.    Their 

writers  must  have  derived  their  information 
Biographies.     £  .  .,      .         ,    ,,  . 

from  previous  writers,  and  these  were  perhaps 

dependent  upon  others  still  earlier.  Whether  such  a  biog- 
raphy is  trustworthy  or  not  depends  upon  the  source  from 
which  its  author  derives  his  information  and  upon  his  own 
conscientiousness  in  recording  the  information  he  has  de- 
rived. In  most  cases  it  is  possible  to  find  out  by  careful 
study  both  the  source  from  which  a  biography  is  derived 
and  the  character  of  its  writer.  The  existing  biographies 
are  by  no  means  of  equal  value,  some  being  in  the  main 
trustworthy  records,  while  others  are  mere  myths.  So,  too, 
the  scholia  are  of  very  unequal  value.  Some  of  them  seem 
to  be  mere  guesses  or  careless  remarks  of  late 
writers  who  really  had  no  trustworthy  infor- 
mation, while  others  give  in  abbreviated  form  the  content 
of  statements  by  careful  and  well-informed  writers,  perhaps 
even  contemporaries  of  the  person  whose  life,  works,  or  char- 
acter is  being  described.  It  is  only  by  combining  the  facts 
learned  from  these  various  sources  and  by  studying  them 
in  connection  with  the  extant  works  of  the  ancient  authors 
that  we  are  able  to  compose  a  history  of  Greek  literature,  and 
it  is  evident  that  there  must  be  some  gaps  in  our  knowledge 
and  some  details  in  regard  to  which  the  opinions  of  scholars 
still  differ.  Our  information  is,  however,  amply  sufficient  to 
enable  us  to  trace  in  the  main  the  development  of  Greek  lit- 
erature in  historical  times,  and  to  form  a  correct  judgment 
of  the  value  and  character  of  the  different  authors  and 
their  works.  We  are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  extant 
works  and  their  authors,  though  the  works  which  have  been 
partly  or  even  entirely  lost  can  not  be  altogether  neglected. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

The  history  of  Greek  literature  begins,  in  the  strictest 
sense,  with  Homer.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey — long  and  elaborate  works — are  not 
Odyssey  not  tne  beginnings  of  literature.  Of  their  prede- 
the  begin-  cessors  we  know  little,  but  that  little  is  impor- 
nings  of  ^airt  because  it  helps  to  explain  the  existence 

literature.         Qf  ^  /M  and  0dy%%ey% 

Every  primitive  people  has  some  sort  of  music  to  which 
songs  are  sung.     Such  songs,  rude  and  irregular  though 
they  may  be,  are  the  beginnings  of  lyric  poetry, 
Earliest  an(^  from  them  also  epic  poetry  is  developed 

by  the  growth  of  the  narrative  element.  When 
the  Greek  tribes  entered  Greece  they  must  have  brought 
with  them  songs  of  various  kinds,  though  we  can  not  tell 
what  the  stage  of  their  development  was  in  those  early 
times.  But  the  traditions  that  lived  on  and  are  imper- 
fectly recorded  in  later  times  tell  us  of  two  principal 
forms  of  early  poetry,  one  of  which  developed  into  lyric 
poetry  at  a  later  time,  while  the  other  was  the  parent  of 
the  epic.  To  the  first  class  belong  the  threnos,  or  lament 
for  the  dead,  with  its  constant  wailing  refrain  of  "  ai,  ai"; 
the  marriage  song,  invoking  Hymenaeus  and  calling  down 
blessings  on  the  wedded  pair;  the  glad  paean  of  victory, 
sung  after  the  battle,  at  the  feast,  or  on  the  march,  and 
doubtless  some  other  popular  songs,  such  as  those  sung  at 
the  festivals  of  the  springtime  and  the  vintage.  The 
second  class  consisted  of  more  formal  and  sedate  songs,  of 
hymns  to  the  gods,  and  chants  of  battle,  adventure,  and 
prowess. 

The  birthplace  of  the  Muses,  daughters  of  Zeus,  teach- 
ers of  song  to  mortals,  was,  according  to  the  popular  tradi- 
tion, in  Pieria,  on  the  northern  slopes  of  Mount 
Musesierian      01ymPus,  in  Thessaly.     From  this  region   a 
colony  of  Pierians  moved  south   and  settled 
about  Mount  Helicon,  bringing  the  worship  of  the  Muses 
with  them.     This  tradition  seems  to  hide  a  grain  of  truth. 
2 


8  GREEK  LITERATURE 

It  seems  that  the  Greeks  did,  at  some  time  long  before  the 
beginnings  of  literary  history,  receive  hymns  and  minstrels 
from  the  north,  and  it  is  certain  that  there  was  a  school  of 
poetry  about  Mount  Helicon,  in  Bceotia.  But  the  Greeks 
themselves  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  poets  of  those 
early  days,  and  the  names  they  have  handed  down  to  us  are 
not  to  be  regarded  as  historical,  but  only  as  mythical  per- 
sonifications of  poetry  and  song.  Two  of  these,  Orpheus 
and  Linus,  are  represented  as  Thracians,  sons 
Mythical  f  the  Muge  Calliope.     The  name  of  Linus  is 

poets.  . 

probably  derived  from  the  refrain  of  an  an- 
cient song  of  mourning,  ailinos  (cuXivos),  which  the  Greeks 
explained  as  "  alas  for  Linus,"  and  accounted  for  by  the 
story  of  Linus  and  his  sad  death.  So  Orpheus,  sometimes 
called  the  brother  of  Linus,  is  an  entirely  mythical  charac- 
ter, though  a  considerable  body  of  not  very  early  poetry 
was  falsely  ascribed  to  him.  Musaeus,  about  whom  contra- 
dictory stories  were  told,  but  who  was  regarded  as  the  son 
or  the  pupil  of  Orpheus,  was  connected  with  the  sacred 
rites  at  Eleusis,  in  Attica,  and  his  son  (or  father)  Eumol- 
pus  was  regarded  as  the  ancestor  of  the  Attic  family  of  the 
Eumolpidae.  But  Musaeus  himself  is  as  mythical  as  Or- 
pheus. Another  utterly  vague  and  probably  mythical  poet 
is  Pamphus,  who  was  supposed  to  have  introduced  or  fixed 
the  religious  tradition  in  Attica  and  the  neighboring  part 
of  Bceotia. 

But  it  was  not  alone  from  the  north  that  music  and 
poetry  entered  Greece.  One  of  the  famous  mythical  sing- 
ers was  Olen,  from  Lycia,  in  Asia  Minor,  who 
was  said  to  be  the  author  of  hymns  sung  to 
Apollo  at  Delos,  and  the  Delians  claimed  that  his  songs 
and  some  other  ancient  hymns  sung  at  Delos  in  Apollo's 
honor  were  among  the  earliest  Greek  poems.  They  also 
claimed  that  Olen  was  the  inventor  of  the  epic  hexameter 
verse,  a  distinction  which  the  Delphians  claimed  for  the 
first  Pythia  at  Delphi,  Phemonoe.     The  hexameter  verse, 


INTRODUCTION  9 

like  most  other  verses,  was  not  the  invention  of  any  one 

person,  but  was  a  natural  growth.     The  fact,  however,  that 

the  Delphians  claimed  that  it  was  invented  by  their  priestess 

shows  that  there  was  an  early  school  of  poetry 

schhooielPhiC  at  DelPhi'  Here>  according  to  the  story,  the 
Cretan  Ohrysothemis  contended  for  the  prize 
in  song,  and  after  him  Philammon  of  Thrace,  and  after  him 
his  son  Thamyris.  These  are  all  mythical  personages,  but 
the  story  of  their  contests  at  Delphi  is  an  indication  that 
the  northern  and  eastern  schools  of  song  met  and  joined 
forces  on  the  slopes  of  Parnassus. 

The  names  assigned  to  the  earliest  singers  of  hymns  in 
Greece  are  mythical,  and  all  their  songs  are  lost ;  but  it  is 
evident  that  they  had  great  influence  upon  the  poetry  of 
the  first  great  epoch  of  Greek  literature,  the  time  when  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  composed,  as  well  as  upon  the 
slightly  later  poems  ascribed  to  Hesiod  and  his  school. 


CHAPTEE  II 

THE   HOMERIC   POEMS 

The  greatness  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey — Greek  myths — The  story  of 
the  Trojan  War — The  story  of  the  Iliad — The  story  of  the  Odyssey — 
Differences  and  resemblances  of  the  two  poems — Homeric  style  and 
composition — Narrative  and  description — Similes — Dialogue — Charac- 
ters— Women  in  Homer — Nausicaa. 

Greek  literature  begins  for  us  with  the  Homeric  poems, 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  There  were  other  earlier  poems, 
not  only  the  hymns  of  which  we  have  spoken,  but  epic  poems 
Greatness  of  a^so  >  Du^  "these  have  disappeared,  leaving  the 
the  Iliad  and  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  alone  in  their  grandeur. 
Odyssey.  ]?or  m0re  than  two  thousand  years  these  two 

have  stood  as  the  highest  and  most  perfect  examples  of 
epic  poetry.  It  is  only  by  minute  investigation  and  in- 
genious combination  of  evidence  that  scholars  have  been 
able  to  acquire  some  real  knowledge  of  the  date  and  man- 
ner of  composition  of  these  immortal  works,  but  the  works 
themselves  have  served  as  a  constant  source  of  inspiration 
to  countless  generations  of  scholars,  poets,  and  artists. 

The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  have  for  their  subjects  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  story  of  the  Trojan  War.  This  was  a 
tale  of  the  ancient  heroes  in  whom  the  Greeks  believed  as 
firmly  as  they  believed  in  their  gods.  Indeed,  why  should 
they  not?  For  the  heroes  were  sons  or  de- 
scendants of  gods,  and  at  the  same  time  ances- 
tors of  the  noblest  Greek  families.  Many  stories  were  told 
of  them.  Some  of  these  probably  had  real  historical  founda- 
10 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  11 

tion,  others  were  new  embodiments  of  ancient  nature  myths 
or  folk-lore,  and  still  others  contained  historical  and  myth- 
ical elements  combined  and  made  one  through  poetical 
imagination.  But  whatever  the  origin  of  these  stories, 
the  Greeks  accepted  them  for  many  centuries  as  the 
truth. 

Of  all  these  tales,  the  story  of  the  Trojan  War  is  of  the 
greatest  interest  to  us,  because  it  furnishes  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  The  story  is  made 
up  of  various  elements,  and  some  parts  of  it  are  known  to 
us  only  from  the  works  of  late  writers.  Briefly  told,  it  is 
as  follows : 

Zeus  was  in  love  with  the  beautiful  sea-goddess  Thetis 
and  wished  to  marry  her,  but  he  was  told  that  the  son  of 
Thetis  was  fated  to  be  mightier  than  his  father,  and  there- 
upon he  decided  that  Thetis  must  marry  a  mortal  man. 
Peleus,  a  chieftain  of  Phthiotis,  a  part  of  what  was  after- 
The  wedding-  ward  Thessaly,  was  chosen  as  her  husband, 
of  Peleus  and  The  wedding  was  a  splendid  festival,  and  all 
Thetis.  tne  gods  and  goddesses  were  invited  except 

Eris,  goddess  of  strife.  She  was  angry  at  being  left  out, 
and  spitefully  threw  among  the  assembled  goddesses  a 
golden  apple  with  the  inscription  "For  the  fairest."  At 
once  Hera,  Athena,  and  Aphrodite  claimed  the  apple,  and 
their  quarrel  bade  fair  to  cause  serious  strife  among  the 
gods,  but  they  finally  agreed  to  submit  the  case  to  the 
judgment  of  Paris,  son  of  Priam,  king  of  Troy  or  Ilium. 
Each  of  the  goddesses  offered  Paris  a  reward  if  he  would 
decide  that  she  was  the  fairest  and  should  have  the  golden 
The  judg-  apple.  Aphrodite  promised  him  the  most  beau- 
ment  of  tiful  woman  in  the  world  for  his  wife,  and  he 

Pans.  adjudged  her  the  prize.     Now  the  most  beau- 

tiful of  women  was  Helen,  daughter  of  Tyndareiis  and  wife 
of  Menelaus,  king  of  Sparta.  With  the  help  of  Aphrodite, 
Paris  carried  Helen  away  to  Troy.  But  before  her  mar- 
riage with  Menelaus,  Helen  had  had  many  suitors,  and  it 


12  GREEK  LITERATURE 

had  been  agreed  among  them  that  if  any  wrong  should  be 
done  to  her  or  to  her  husband  on  her  account  they  would 
all  join  in  avenging  it.  So  when  Paris  had  carried  Helen 
away,  Tyndareiis  and  Menelaus  called  upon  the  Greek  chiefs 
to  keep  their  promise.  A  great  host  came  together  and 
sailed  against  Troy  under  the  command  of  Agamemnon, 
king  of  Mycenae,  brother  of  Menelaus.     In  this  host  were 

many  famous  heroes,  the  wise  Nestor,  from 
The  Gree  Pylos  in  Triphylia ;    Odysseus  (or  Ulysses,  as 

the  Eomans  called  him),  from  Ithaca ;  Achil- 
les, the  son  of  Peleus  and  Thetis ;  the  mighty  Ajax  from 
Salamis,  the  son  of  Telamon  ;  Ajax,  the  son  of  Oileus ;  and 
many  more.  For  nine  long  years  these  warriors  endured 
the  toils  of  war  about  the  walls  of  Troy,  but  they  were 
unable  to  take  the  city,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Tro- 
jans were  kept  most  of  the  time  penned  up  within  their  , 
walls.  The  forces  on  the  two  sides  were  nearly  equal,  but 
there  was  one  warrior  among  the  Greeks  whom  even  Hec- 
tor, the  bravest  and  mightiest  of  the  Trojans,  could  not 

meet  on  equal  terms  in  the  field.     This  hero 

was  Achilles.  His  courage  and  skill  in  fight- 
ing kept  the  Trojans  from  attacking  the  camp  of  the 
Greeks  and  made  the  Greeks  hope  that  the  city  would  soon 
fall  into  their  hands.  So  matters  stood  until  the  tenth 
year  of  the  war. 

But  in  the  tenth  year  of  the  war  Achilles  was  terribly 
affronted  by  King  Agamemnon,  who  took  away  from  him  a 

captive  maiden,  Brisei's.  This  is  the  point  at 
th^iiiaJ0      wnicn  the  Iliad  begins,  telling  of  "the  wrath 

of  Peleus's  son  Achilles,  the  baneful  wrath, 
which  entailed  countless  woes  upon  the  Achaeans,  and  sent' 
many  mighty  souls  of  heroes  to  Hades."  Achilles  withdrew 
in  anger  to  his  tent,  and  abstained  from  the  war.  Encour- 
aged by  his  absence,  Hector,  followed  by  the  other  Trojans, 
came  out  boldly  from  the  city,  and  in  spite  of  the  valor  of 
Ajax,  Menelaus,  Diomedes,  and  other  Greek  chiefs,  pressed 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  13 

forward,  and  was  on  the  point  of  setting  fire  to  the  Greek 
ships.  But  Patroclus,  the  bosom  friend  of  Achilles,  bor- 
rowed that  hero's  armor  and  rushed  into  the  fray.  At  first 
the  Trojans  were  dismayed,  thinking  Achilles  himself  had 
returned  to  the  field,  but  soon  Patroclus  was  slain  by 
Hector.  Achilles  was  plunged  into  the  deepest  grief,  but 
determined  to  avenge  his  friend's  death.  His  mother, 
Thetis,  obtained  a  superb  suit  of  armor  from  the  god  of 
metal  work?  Hephaestus,  and  Achilles  mounted  his  chariot 
and  went  forth  to  battle.  At  last  he  met  Hector,  who  fled  at 
his  approach.  But  Achilles  chased  him  on  foot  about  the 
walls  of  Troy,  and  killed  him,  taking  his  body  back  with 
him  to  his  tent,  where  he  mourned  for  Patroclus.  Guided 
by  the  god  Hermes,  the  aged  Priam  entered  the  Grecian 
camp  and  begged  his  son's  body  from  the  victor  for  burial. 
The  Iliad  closes  with  the  burial  of  Hector. 

After  the  death  of  Hector  the  war  still  went  on,  and 
Achilles  was  killed  with  an  arrow  by  Paris,  aided  by  Apollo; 

but  at  last  the  Greeks  devised  a  plan  by  which 
Trov  E  1Ug  °    ^v  took  the  city.     They  made  a  great  wooden 

horse,  within  which  some  of  the  bravest  chief- 
tains concealed  themselves,  whereupon  the  rest  of  the  army 
sailed  away  to  the  neighboring  island  of  Tenedos.  The 
Trojans  came  out  after  their  long  confinement  within  the 
walls,  wondered  at  the  great  horse,  and  finally,  persuaded 
by  the  false  statements  of  a  Greek  who  had  been  left  be- 
hind, made  a  breach  in  the  wall  and  drew  it  into  the  city. 
In  the  night  the  enclosed  warriors  came  out,  the  rest  of  the 
army  returned  from  Tenedos,  and  the  city  was  taken, 
sacked,  and  burned.  Many  of  the  inhabitants  were  killed, 
some  escaped,  and  others  were  carried  off  as  prisoners  by 

the  Greeks. 

the  Greeks  °'         Af ter  the  destruction  of  Tr°y  the  Greeks  set 

out  for  home  in  their  ships.    Some  of  the  chiefs 

reached  Greece  without  mishap,  but  others  were  driven  in 

various  directions  by  the  winds,  in  accordance  with  the  com- 


14  GREEK  LITERATURE 

mands  of  the  gods.     Among  these  none  was  so  famous  as 

Odysseus,  whose  adventures  are  the  subject  of  the  Odyssey. 

Leaving  Troy  with  his  twelve  ships,  Odysseus  sailed  to 

Ismarus,  a  city  of  the  Ciconians,  which  he  sacked  with  a 

loss  of  seventy-two  men.     Then  he  sailed  to 

tte  Od°Me°f     the  land  of  the  lotus-eaters>  "who  eat  fl<>wery 
food,"  and  thence  to  the  land  of  the  Cyclopes. 

Here  he,  with  twelve  comrades,  entered  the  cave  of  the 
monstrous  Polyphemus,  son  of  Poseidon,  who  devoured  six 
of  the  men ;  and  the  others  escaped  only  by  making  the 
Cyclops  drunk  and  putting  out  his  single  eye.  Next  Odys- 
seus and  his  fleet  were  driven  to  the  island  of  iEolus,  god 
of  the  winds,  and  through  his  kindness  they  almost  reached 
Ithaca,  for  he  gave  Odysseus  all  the  adverse  winds  tied 
up  in  a  bag,  so  that  only  a  favoring  breeze  could  blow. 
But  the  sailors  opened  the  bag  while  Odysseus  slept,  and 
the  winds  blew  them  back  to  ^olus.  Next  they  came  to 
the  cannibal  Laestrygonians,  who  destroyed  eleven  ships 
together  with  their  crews.  With  the  one  remaining  ship 
Odysseus  reached  the  island  of  the  sorceress  Circe.  She 
changed  some  of  his  comrades  into  swine,  but  Odysseus 
forced  her  to  restore  their  human  form,  and  lived  with  her 
in  comfort  for  a  year.  After  that  he  sailed  to  Hades,  the 
abode  of  the  dead,  to  consult  the  spirits.  After  a  second 
and  brief  visit  with  Circe,  he  passed  the  coast  of  the  sweetly 
singing  sirens,  avoided  the  clashing  rocks  and  the  whirl- 
pool Charybdis,  but  lost  six  men  snatched  from  the  ship  by 
the  monster  Scylla.  On  the  island  of  Thrinacia  his  com- 
rades killed  and  ate  the  sacred  cattle  of  the  sun-god,  in 
punishment  for  which  their  ship  was  wrecked  and  all 
except  Odysseus  himself  were  drowned.  He  clung  to  a 
fragment  of  the  vessel,  and,  after  floating  for  nine  days, 
reached  the  island  of  Ogygia,  "  a  sea-girt  isle,  where  is  the 
middle  of  the  sea."  Here  dwelt  Calypso,  a  fair-haired 
goddess,  who  loved  him  and  cared  for  him  for  seven  years. 
But  Odysseus  always  longed  for  his  home  and  his  dear  wife 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  15 

Penelope,  and  at  last,  by  the  command  of  Zeus,  Calypso 
sent  him  on  a  raft  to  journey  homeward.  Poseidon  wrecked 
the  raft,  but  a  kind  sea-goddess,  Ino,  saved  Odysseus,  and 
he  came  in  safety  to  Scheria,  the  land  of  the  Phaeacians. 
Here  Athena  caused  him  to  meet  Nausicaa,  the  lovely 
daughter  of  King  Alcinous.  She  showed  him  the  way  to 
the  palace,  where  he  was  kindly  received.  After  a  brief 
and  pleasant  visit  at  the  house  of  Alcinous,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  related  his  previous  adventures,  Odysseus  was 
carried  home  to  Ithaca  in  a  Phseacian  ship. 

Here  his  long  absence  of  twenty  years  had  brought 
trouble  to  his  wife  Penelope  and  their  son  Telemachus. 

Assuming  that  Odysseus  was  dead,  many  nobles 
ith.airSin         °^  -^haca   an(^   the   neighboring   regions   had 

become  suitors  for  the  hand  of  Penelope,  and 
had  taken  possession  of  the  palace  of  Odysseus,  where  they 
feasted  and  consumed  his  substance.  Penelope  could  not 
drive  them  away,  nor  could  she  make  up  her  mind  to 
accept  any  one  of  them  as  her  husband,  while  Telemachus 
was  still  too  young  to  cope  with  so  many.  When  Odysseus 
reached  Ithaca,  Telemachus  had  just  returned  from  a  jour- 
ney to  Pylos  and  Sparta,  whither  he  had  gone  to  ask  Nestor 
and  Menelaus  for  news  of  his  long-absent  father.  This 
journey  was  undertaken  by  the  advice  of  Athena,  who 
accompanied  the  young  man  in  the  shape  of  Mentor,  a 
faithful  friend  of  Odysseus.  On  his  way  home  Telemachus 
had  escaped  an  ambush  of  the  suitors  who  plotted  his 
death.  Odysseus  met  his  son  at  the  house  of  the  swineherd 
Eumseus.  Here  they  plotted  the  destruction  of  the  suitors, 
and  presently  carried  out  their  design,  with  the  aid  of 
Athena  and  a  few  faithful  servants.  Odysseus  was  restored 
to  his  wife  and  his  property,  and  though  the  relatives  of 
the  slain  suitors  threatened  vengeance,  peace  was  made 
by  "  Pallas  Athena,  daughter  of  Eegis-bearing  Zeus,  who 
likened  herself  to  Mentor  in  form  and  voice."  Herewith 
ends  the  Odyssey. 


16  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  plots  of  the  Homeric  poems  are  enlivened,  rather 
than  interrupted,  by  numerous  episodes,  which,  while  not 
always  helping  to  carry  the  story  along  toward 
its  conclusion,  constantly  throw  light  upon  the 
life  of  the  Homeric  times,  the  circumstances  or  characters 
of  the  heroes,  or  the  ideals  and  mental  habits  of  the  poet. 
These  episodes  do  therefore  really  help  to  make  the  narra- 
tive live  and  move,  because  they  seem  to  place  the  reader 
in  the  midst  of  the  life  of  the  persons  of  the  story. 

The  Iliad  is  a  poem  of  battle,  of  fierce  conflicts  between 
heroes  who  meet  each  other  hand  to  hand.  Although 
Differences  Achilles  is  accepted  as  the  greatest  of  warriors, 
between  Iliad  that  fact  is  often  lost  sight  of  in  the  descrip- 
and  Odyssey,  tion  of  the  deeds  of  other  chieftains,  so  that  no 
single  person  is  constantly  kept  before  the  reader  as  the 
hero  of  the  poem.  The  Odyssey,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
tale  of  adventures  in  distant  and  unknown  lands,  of  strug- 
gles against  the  winds  and  waves,  savage  men,  and  fierce 
monsters.  It  abounds  with  fabulous  elements,  such  as  the 
tale  of  the  Cyclops  or  that  of  the  gigantic,  cannibal  Laestry- 
gonians.  Only  at  the  end  of  the  poem  does  Odysseus  cease 
to  contend  with  superhuman  foes  or  to  dwell  with  persons 
of  greater  than  human  birth,  and  everywhere,  except  in  the 
first  four  books,  in  which  the  adventures  of  Telemachus 
are  related,  Odysseus  is  constantly  before  the  reader  as  the 
"resourceful,"  the  " much-enduring,"  the  "man  of  many 
wiles,"  whose  courage,  endurance,  and  craft  triumph,  with 
the  aid  of  Athena,  over  all  obstacles  and  all  opponents. 
Suoh  are  some  of  the  most  evident  differences  between  the 
Resemblances  ^a^  an^  the  Odyssey.  But  their  resemblances 
between  are  no  less  striking.     Both   are  long  poems 

Iliad  and  dealing  only  with  parts  of  the  great  tale  of  the 
Odyssey.  war  against  Hium .  D0th  are  jn  ^he  same  hexam- 

eter verse  and,  with  slight  variations  about  which  we  shall 
have  more  to  say  presently,  in  the  same  dialect ;  both  rep- 
resent about  the  same  stage  of  civilization.     In  style  also 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  17 

the  two  poems  are  very  much  alike.  Each  is,  to  be  sure, 
more  or  less  uneven,  so  that  one  part  is  different  from  an- 
other, but  yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  similarity  in  style 
between  any  part  of  either  poem  and  any  part  of  the  same 
poem  or  of  the  other  is  greater  than  the  differences  which 
can  be  pointed  out.  Such  differences  exist  and  are,  as  we 
shall  see,  important,  but  they  are  so  far  outweighed  by  the 
general  similarity  in  thought  and  expression  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  speak  of  the  Homeric  style  as  of  a  style  common  in 
its  essentials  to  both  poems.  In  this  style  there  is  a  won- 
derful union  of  limpid  clearness,  brilliancy  of 
stylistic  diction,  directness  and  vigor  of  expression,  and 

nobility  and  dignity  of  language.  In  no  other 
epics  do  we  find  all  these  qualities  to  so  high  a  degree. 
These  qualities  of  style,  even  more  than  the  interest  of  the 
narrative  and  the  excellence  of  composition,  have  made  the 
Homeric  poems  the  models  for  all  later  epic  poets  to  imi- 
tate, and  have  for  centuries  called  forth  the  admiration  of 
the  world. 

One  of  the  marked  qualities  of  the  Homeric  style  is  the 
brilliancy  and  directness  of  the  narrative,  the  clearness  and 
accuracy  of  the  description.  What  can  be 
Narrative  and  c]earer  or  more  vivid  than  this  brief  account 
of  the  beginning  of  a  battle  in  the  Iliad  ? 1 
Now  the  long-haired  Achseans  took  meat  hastily  among  the 
huts,  and  after  that  armed  themselves.  And  the  Trojans,  too,  on 
the  other  side  were  putting  on  their  armor  throughout  the  city — 
in  number  fewer,  but  they  were  eager  even  so  to  fight  in  battle,  of 
stern  necessity,  for  their  children  and  their  wives.  And  all  the 
gates  were  opened  and  the  folk  poured  out,  both  foot  and  horsemen ; 
and  a  mighty  din  arose.  And  they,  when  as  they  came  together 
they  had  reached  one  spot,  clashed  targes  together  and  spears  and 
the  strength  of  bronze-breast-plated  men;  and  the  bossed  shields 
pressed  one  another,  and  a  mighty  din  arose.  And  there  at  once 
were  heard  the  groaning  and  the  boasts  of  men  who  were  destroying 
and  destroyed,  and  the  earth  flowed  with  blood. 

1  Iliad,  viii,  53  ft 


18  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Another  example  from  the  Iliad  is  the  description  of  the 
pursuit  of  Hector  by  Achilles.1 

So  Hector  stood  and  pondered;  but  near  bim  came  Achilles, 
the  peer  of  Ares,  waving-crested  warrior,  shaking  over  his  right 
shoulder  his  fearful  spear  of  Pelian  ash ;  and  about  him  his  bronze 
armor  shone  like  the  glare  of  a  blazing  fire  or  of  the  rising  sun. 
And  Hector,  when  he  saw  him,  was  seized  with  trembling,  and  no 
longer  dared  to  bide  there  where  he  was,  but  left  the  gates  behind 
him  and  fled  in  fear.  And  Peleus's  son  rushed  on  him,  trusting  in 
his  swift  feet.  As  a  falcon  on  the  mountains,  swiftest  of  winged 
birds,  swoops  lightly  upon  a  wood-pigeon,  and  she  flies  trembling 
away,  while  he,  shrilly  screaming  close  at  hand,  darts  upon  her,  and 
his  spirit  urges  him  to  seize  her,  so  he  eagerly  flew  straight  for  him, 
and  Hector  fled  shuddering  beneath  the  Trojan  wall,  and  plied  swift 
knees.  And  they  sped  past  the  watching  place  and  the  wind-tossed 
wild  fig-tree,  always  out  from  the  wall  along  the  wagon  road.  And 
they  came  to  the  two  fair  flowing  fountains  where  bubble  up  the  two 
sources  of  the  eddying  Scamander.  The  one  flows  with  warm 
water,  and  about  it  smoke  rises  as  from  a  blazing  fire ;  but  the  other 
flows  forth  in  summer  heat  like  hail,  or  cold  snow,  or  ice  formed  of 
water.  And  there  at  the  springs  were  broad  washing  places  hard 
by,  fair  ones  of  stone,  where  the  wives  and  lovely  daughters  of  the 
Trojans  used  to  wash  the  shining  raiment  in  former  times  of  peace, 
before  the  sons  of  the  Achseans  came.  There  they  two  ran  past,  he  flee- 
ing, and  he  following  after — noble  he  who  fled  before,  but  a  much 
nobler  pursued  him — swiftly,  since  not  for  a  beast  of  sacrifice  nor 
for  an  ox-hide  were  they  striving,  which  are  the  prizes  for  men's 
fleetness  of  foot,  but  for  the  life  of  horse-taming  Hector.  And,  as 
when  prize-winning,  swift-footed  horses  run  very  swiftly  round  the 
turning-points,  and  the  prize  that  lies  before  them  is  great,  either  a 
tripod  or  a  woman,  in  honor  of  a  man  who  is  dead,  so  they  two 
whirled  thrice  round  the  city  of  Priam  with  their  rapid  feet. 

Here  the  insertion  of  similes  and  description  in  the 
midst  of  rapid  and  vivid  narrative  is  especially  character- 
istic. Similar  qualities  are  found  also  in  the  Odyssey,  as  in 
the  description 2  of  the  wreck  of  the  raft : 

1  Iliad,  xxii,  131  ff.  2  Odyssey,  v,  313  ff.,  Palmer's  translation. 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  19 

As  thus  he  spoke,  a  great  wave  broke  on  high  and  madly 
whirled  his  raft  around ;  far  from  the  raft  he  fell  and  sent  the  rud- 
der flying  from  liis  hand.  The  mast  snapped  in  the  middle  under 
the  fearful  tempest  of  opposing  winds  that  struck,  and  far  in  the  sea 
canvas  and  sail  yard  fell.  The  water  held  him  long  submerged ;  he 
could  not  rise  at  once  after  the  crash  of  the  great  wave,  for  the 
clothing  which  divine  Calypso  gave  him  weighed  him  down.  At 
length,  however,  he  came  up,  spitting  from  out  his  mouth  the  bitter 
brine  which  plentifully  trickled  from  his  head.  Yet  even  then, 
spent  as  he  was,  he  did  not  forget  his  raft,  but  pushing  on  amongst 
the  waves  laid  hold  of  her,  and  in  her  middle  got  a  seat,  and  so  es- 
caped death's  ending.  But  her  the  great  wave  drove  along  its  cur- 
rent, up  and  down.  As  when  in  autumn  Boreas  drives  thistle-heads 
along  the  plain,  and  close  they  cling  together,  so  the  winds  drove 
her  up  and  down  the  deep.  One  moment  Notus  tossed  her  on  to 
Boreas  to  drive,  the  next  would  Eurus  give  her  up  to  Zephyrus  to 
chase. 

The  Homeric  similes  are  justly  famous  for  their  pro- 
fusion, clearness,  and  accuracy.     So  in  describing  the  hosts 

of  the  Greeks  at  Troy 1  the  poet  says  : 
Homeric 
similes.  ^-n(^    as   tne    many  tribes    of  winged  birds,   of 

geese  or  cranes  or  long-necked  swans,  upon  the  Asian 
mead  about  Caystrius'  streams  fly  here  and  there  rejoicing  in 
their  wings,  and  clamor  as  they  settle  from  their  flight,  and 
the  meadow  resounds;  so  of  the  Greeks  the  many  tribes  poured 
forth  from  ships  and  tents  to  the  Scamandrian  plain,  and  under 
them  the  earth  resounded  terribly  with  the  tread  of  men  and 
horses.  And  they  took  their  stand  in  the  flowery  Scamandrian 
plain  in  countless  numbers,  as  many  as  are  the  leaves  and  flowers  in 
their  season.  Just  as  the  many  tribes  of  thick  flies  that  settle  about 
a  herdsman's  shelter  in  the  spring  season,  when  the  milk  drenches 
the  pails,  so  many  in  number  did  the  long-haired  Achseans  stand 
against  the  Trojans  in  the  plain,  longing  to  break  their  ranks  in 
sunder. 

And  in  the  lines  immediately  following  these,  the  Greeks 
are  likened  to  herds  of  goats,  and  their  leaders  to  the  herds- 
man, and  among  the  leaders  Agamemnon,  "in  eyes  and 
1  Iliad,  ii,  459  ff. 


20  GREEK  LITERATURE 

head  like  Zeus  who  rejoices  in  the  thunderbolt,  in  girth 
like  Ares,  and  in  breast  like  Poseidon,"  is  compared  to  a 
mighty  bull  among  a  herd  of  kine.  So  in'  the  Odyssey, 
Odysseus  is  compared  to  a  mountain-lion  driven  by  hunger 
to  the  haunts  of  men,1  he  himself  compares  Nausicaa  to  a 
young  palm-tree,2  and  many  other  similes  could  be  cited, 
all  apt,  and  most  of  them  testifying  to  careful  and  well- 
trained  observation. 

The  narrative  is  also  enlivened  by  the  frequent  insertion 
of  dialogue,  especially  in  the  Iliad  (though  a  considerable 
part  of  the  Odyssey  also  is  in  dialogue  form), 
ia  ogue.  an(^  ^y  putting  the  narrative  in  the  first  per- 
son. So  Books  IX,  X,  XI,  and  XII  of  the  Odyssey  are  told 
by  Odysseus. 

Besides  these  qualities  of  the  narrative,  the  portrayal  of 
character  is  of  striking  excellence.  Achilles,  the  noble,  im- 
petuous warrior  in  the  bloom  of  youthful  beauty } 
Drawing  of  w^0  gQ  joves  j^jg  frien(i  that  he  must  avenge  his 
character.  ° 

death,  even  though  he  knows  that  if  he  slays 
Hector  he  himself  must  die,  but  who  gives  up  the  body  of 
his  hated  foe  for  burial  when  the  aged  Priam  moves  him 
with  his  prayers — Achilles,  the  ideal  of  military  glory,  is  the 
central  figure  of  the  Iliad.  So  Odysseus,  the  courageous, 
but  prudent,  mature,  and  calculating  man,  the  prototype  of 
the  adventurous  sailors  who  made  the  entire  Mediterranean 
pay  commercial  tribute  to  Greek  commerce  at  a  later  date, 
is  portrayed  in  the  Odyssey  with  a  vigor  and  delicacy  un- 
surpassed in  later  literature.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Achilles 
and  Odysseus  lived  on  through  all  the  literary  history  of  the 
Greeks,  or  that  Alexander  the  Great,  accepting  Achilles  as 
the  hero  after  whose  character  he  would  gladly  model  his 
own,  envied  him  his  good  fortune  in  having  Homer  as  his 
biographer. 

But  Achilles  and  Odysseus  are  not  the  only  persons 
whose  characters  stand  out  in  clear  lines.     Agamemnon, 
1  Odyssey,  vi,  130  ff.  .  8  Ibid.,  vi,  162  ff. 


THE  HOMERIC  POEMS  21 

king  of  men,  the  strong,  insistent,  vigorous  monarch  and 

commander-in-chief ;  Diomedes,  the  bold  fighter  and  wise 

counselor ;    Nestor,   the   aged   adviser ;   Ajax, 

secondary       the  Btrong  and  vaiiant  bulwark  of  the  host ; 

cli&racters. 

Hector,  the  foremost  fighter  of  the  Trojan 
chiefs,  dauntless  in  war,  but  tender  and  true  in  his  domestic 
life ;  Priam,  the  dignified  king  and  the  bereaved  father — all 
these  are  distinct  and  powerful  figures  in  the  Iliad.  And 
in  the  Odyssey  we  find  the  courteous  and  gentlemanly 
Menelaus;  the  noble  young  Telemachus,  not  yet  sure  of 
himself  so  as  to  be  independent  in  his  action,  but  showing 
his  father's  spirit  in  prudent  thought  and  valiant  deed; 
Eumaeus,  the  faithful  steward,  affectionate  servitor,  and 
sturdy  helper — all  so  depicted  that  they  have  been  for  cen- 
turies familiar  types. 

Nor  are  the  personalities  of  women  neglected.     In  the 
Iliad,  to  be  sure,  they  are  not  made  especially  prominent, 

but  though  the  stress  of  fighting  keeps  women 
in  Homer         *n  ^ne  background,  Hector's  wife,  Andromache, 

loving  wife,  tender  mother,  and  gentle  lady, 
lives  in  our  memories,1  and  "  long-robed  Helen,  fair  among 
women,"  moves  among  the  Trojans  with  a  dignity  befitting 
a  "  daughter  of  the  gods."  In  the  Odyssey  women  are 
more  prominent.  The  prudent  Penelope,  faithful  to  her 
husband  through  his  twenty  years  of  absence,  will  live  for- 
ever as  the  type  of  wifely  devotion,  while  the  slight  signs 
of  coquetry  she  betrays  and  her  inability  to  send  the  suit- 
ors away  with  sharp  and  decisive  words  are  inconsistencies 
which  only  make  her  character  more  true  to  life.  Add  to 
these  traits  her  anxious  solicitude  for  Telemachus,  her 
housewifely  care  for  the  domestic  matters  under  her  con- 
trol, her  incredulity  when  told  of  the  return  of  Odysseus, 
and  her  final  joy  when  convinced  that  it  is  really  her  hus- 
band— and  her  personality  stands  before  us  with  singular 
distinctness  and  in  unusual  detail.     Helen,  too,  the  gentle 

1  Iliad,  vi,  394  ff. 


22  GREEK  LITERATURE 

lady  who  presides  with  so  much  grace  in  the  palace  of 
Menelaus  at  Sparta,  is  a  figure  not  to  be  forgotten.  But 
Nausicaa  is  the  most  charming  of  the  women  of  Homer. 
Little  is  said  of  her ;  she  is  a  secondary  char- 
acter in  an  episode  of  the  poem ;  yet  who  can 
be  more  delightful  ?  Hiding  in  her  heart  her  thoughts  of 
her  own  marriage,  she  asks  her  father1  to  let  her  take 
the  clothes  to  the  washing :  "  Papa,  dear,  could  you  not 
have  the  wagon  harnessed  for  me — the  high  one,  with  good 
wheels — to  take  my  nice  clothes  to  the  river  to  be  washed, 
which  now  are  lying  dirty?  Surely  for  yourself  it  is  but 
proper,  when  you  are  with  the  first  men  holding  councils, 
that  you  should  wear  clean  clothing.  Five  good  sons,  too, 
are  here  at  home — two  married  and  three  merry  young  men 
still — and  they  are  always  wanting  to  go  to  the  dance,  wear- 
ing fresh  clothes.  And  this  is  all  a  trouble  on  my  mind." 
This  is  the  simple  speech  of  any  girl  to  any  father — essen- 
tially girlish.  But  when,  after  the  washing  and  the  ball 
play,  she  sees  the  naked  and  unkempt  Odysseus  coming 
toward  her,  she  shows  courage  and  wisdom  beyond  her 
years.  Then,  after  Odysseus  has  bathed  and  clothed  him- 
self, he  returns  to  Nausicaa,  who  says 2  to  her  maids :  "  A 
while  ago  he  really  seemed  to  me  ill-looking,  but  now  he  is 
like  the  gods  who  hold  the  open  sky.  Ah,  might  a  man 
like  this  be  called  my  husband,  having  his  home  here  and 
content  to  stay!"  This  is  not  love,  but  the  admiration 
which  might  precede  love  in  the  young  girl's  heart.  And 
her  last  words  to  Odysseus 3  are  full  of  quiet  dignity : 
"Stranger,  farewell!  When  you  are  once  again  in  your 
own  land,  remember  me,  and  how  before  all  others  it  is  to 
me  you  owe  the  saving  of  your  life."  Here  is  no  word  of 
regret,  no  hint  that  the  stranger  might  have  been  more  to 
her  than  he  had  chosen  to  be.  Nausicaa  remains  a  simple, 
unaffected  girl — and  a  princess. 

1  Odyssey,  vi,  57  ff.,  Palmer's  translation. 

2  Ibid.,  vi,  242  ft,  *  Ibid.,  viii,  461  f. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION 

Ancient  views — F.  A.  Wolf — Later  scholars — Inconsistencies  in  the 
Iliad — Inconsistencies  in  the  Odyssey — The  dialect — Asia  Minor  the 
home  of  Homeric  poetry — Greek  migration  to  Asia  Minor — Origin  of 
the  original  lays  in  northern  Greece — Comparison  of  Homeric  civiliza- 
tion with  that  of  later  Greece — The  "  Mycenaean  "  civilization — Date 
of  Iliad  and  Odyssey  about  900-700  b.  c. — Personality  of  Homer — Alex- 
andrian division  into  books. 

We  have  now  passed  in  review  some  of  the  chief  general 
characteristics  of  the  Homeric  poems,  and  the  complex 
question  naturally  arises,  "  By  whom,  when,  where,  and 
under  what  circumstances  were  the  poems  composed?" 
This  is  called  the  Homerie  question. 

In  early  times — certainly  until  about  the  middle  of  the 

fifth  century  b.  c. — not  only  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  but 

also  many  other  epic  poems  were  ascribed  to 

Jncilntf  ^  Homer-  By  the  end  of  the  fifth  century,  how- 
ever— by  the  time  of  Plato  and  Aristotle — little 
or  nothing  in  addition  to  these  two  great  poems  was  re- 
garded as  his  work,  and  from  that  time  references  to  Homer 
are  references  to  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey.  In  Alexandrian 
times — not  far  from  the  end  of  the  third  century  b.  c. — 
various  differences  and  inconsistencies  between  the  two 
poems  were  pointed  out  by  the  chorizontes  or  separatists 
Xenon  and  Hellanicus,  who  denied  that  the  Odyssey  was 
by  Homer.  Their  views  were,  however,  combated  by  Aris- 
tarchus,  and  were  not  generally  accepted  at  any  time.  The 
3  23 


24  GREEK  LITERATURE 

modern  Homeric  question  is  not  whether  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  are  by  the  same  author,  but  whether  either  poem 
is  by  one  author,  and  whether  the  name  of  Homer  can 
properly  be  given  to  any  person.  This  question  involves 
the  determination  of  the  date  and  manner  of  composition 
of  the  poems. 

The  beginning  of  modern  discussion  of  the  authorship 
of  the  Homeric  poems  was  made  in  1795  by  Friedrich 
August  Wolf.1  He  was  preparing  an  edition  of  Homer,  and 
in  order  to  enable  himself  to  decide  various 
.rie  "0_  lf  questions  connected  with  the  text  he  pro- 
ceeded to  investigate  the.  manner  in  which 
the  poems  had  been  handed  down  in  ancient  times.  Wolf 
found  that  at  the  early  date  to  which  the  poems  were  unan- 
imously assigned,  writing  was  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  and 
he  believed  that  poems  of  such  length  could  be  neither 
composed  nor  transmitted  without  the  aid  of  writing.  Be- 
sides, inasmuch  as  poetry  was  then  composed  for  recitation 
or  song,  there  would  be  no  object  in  composing  poems  too 
long  for  a  single  recitation.  The  obvious  conclusion  was 
that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  as  we  possess  them,  were  put 
together  at  a  time  when  the  Greeks  were  familiar  with 
writing.  Since,  however,  the  poems  show  many  signs  of 
early  origin,  they  must  have  been  formed  by  uniting  pre- 
viously existing  shorter  songs  or  lays.  Wolf,  accepting  and 
combining  the  statements  of  some  ancient  writers,  believed 
that  the  lays  were  united  by  a  commission  appointed  by 
Pisistratus  to  prepare  a  correct  edition  of  Homer  for  reci- 
tation at  the  Panathenaic  festival.  The  collection  would 
then  be  the  work  of  an  Athenian  commission  at  some  time 
between  560  and  527  b.  c.  This  would  account  for  numer- 
ous peculiarities  of  Attic  speech  noticeable  in  the  text,  as 
well  as  for  the  interpolation  of  lines  exalting  Athens. 

1  Wolf's  views  were  in  part  anticipated  by  the  Italian  Vico,  whose 
work,  however,  failed  to  attract  much  attention. 


THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION  25 

The  views  of  Wolf  have  been  supplemented  and  com- 
bated by  many  scholars,  and  opinions  have  been,  and  still 
The  views  are>  mucn  a^  variance  concerning  the  author- 
of  later  ship  of  the  Homeric  poems.     Lachmann  and 

scholars.  others  have  attempted  to  divide  the  Iliad  into 

its  component  lays,  marking  oif  accurately  the  beginning 
and  end  of  each ;  Grote  believed  that  the  Iliad  was  com- 
posed of  a  relatively  long  poem,  the  Achilleis,  to  which 
other  lays  were  added,  and  various  modifications  of  his 
views  have  been  advanced.  Whereas  the  earlier  discussions 
were  chiefly  devoted  to  the  Iliad — Grote,  for  instance, 
believed  the  Odyssey  to  be  the  work  of  one  man — more 
recent  investigators  have  applied  themselves  especially  to 
the  Odyssey,  which  has  been  shown  by  Kirchhoff  to  be 
composed  of  several  distinct  strata  of  different  origins  and 
dates.  The  latest  writers  accept  for  the  most  part  Kirch- 
hoff's  general  results,  contenting  themselves  with  the  cor- 
rection of  details.  There  are  still,  however,  some  who 
believe,  though  hardly  without  some  reservations  and 
modifications,  in  the  unity  of  authorship  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey.  To  discuss  in  detail  the  theories  of  all  or  any 
writers  on  the  Homeric  question  would  take  far  too  long. 
It  will  be  more  profitable  to  set  forth  briefly  what  seems  a 
reasonable  view,  supporting  it  by  what  argument  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  and  avoiding  all  needless  detail. 

In  the  Iliad,  the  catalogue  of  ships  (Book  II)  is  mani- 
festly out  of  place.  Any  list  of  the  contending  forces 
Inconsist-  should  be  unnecessary  in  a  poem  dealing  with 
encies  in  the  tenth  year  of  the  war,  but  this  list  of  ships 
the  Iliad.  — which  had  been  for  the  most  part  rotting  on 
the  shore  for  ten  years — is  peculiarly  inappropriate.  The 
suggestion  that  it  was  originally  intended  as  a  part  of  a 
description  of  the  gathering  of  the  Achaeans  at  Aulis  con- 
tains much  probability.  In  the  third  book  Helen  points 
out  the  Achaean  leaders  to  Priam  and  other  Trojans. 
Could  Priam  fail  to  know  them  after  nearly  ten  years  of 


26  GREEK  LITERATURE 

conflict  ?  And  if  they  had  never  been  visible  from  the 
walls  in  all  that  time,  could  Helen  recognize  them  after 
her  long  absence  from  Greece  ?  Clearly  this  scene  belongs 
in  a  poem  dealing  with  the  earlier  part  of  the  war.  Again, 
the  introduction  designates  the  wrath  of  Achilles  as  the 
subject  of  the  poem  ;  but  a  large  part  of  our  Iliad  has  only 
the  most  distant  connection  with,  the  wrath  of  Achilles. 
So  the  Doloneia  (Book  X)  tells  of  an  adventure  of  Odys- 
seus and  Diomedes  which  in  no  way  affects  the  relations  of 
Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  but  is  an  independent  tale. 
Those  parts  of  the  Iliad  in  which  the  great  deeds  of  various 
heroes  are  described  may,  to  be  sure,  be  brought  into  con- 
nection with  Achilles  on  the  ground  that  they  show  his 
greatness,  since  without  him  even  such  mighty  warriors  as 
Diomedes,  Menelaus,  and  Ajax  could  not  hold  back  the 
Trojans,  but  these  passages  read  rather  as  if  they  had  been 
composed  for  their  own  sake,  perhaps  with  a  view  to  pleas- 
ing some  family  which  derived  its  origin  from  the  hero 
whose  deeds  are  described. 

The  Odyssey,  too,  shows  numerous  signs  of  composition 
from  various  elements.  The  council  of  the  gods  in  the 
Inconsist-  nrs^  D0°k  is  needlessly  repeated  in  the  fifth — 
encies  in  needlessly,  that  is,  if  the  reader  or  hearer  of 
the  Odyssey.  the  fif^  "book  jg  supposed  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  first.  The  first  four  books,  even  though  in  their 
existing  form  they  can  never  have  been  an  independent 
epic,  are  out  of  all  proportion  as  an  introduction  to  the 
comparatively  subordinate  part  played  by  Telemachus  in 
the  real  business  of  the  poem.  In  the  eleventh  book 
Odysseus  visits  the  realm  of  the  dead  in  order  to  consult 
the  shade  of  the  prophet  Teiresias  about  his  homewarcl 
voyage.  But  Teiresias  tells  him  nothing  that  he  does  not 
already  know  from  Circe,  except  that  he  must  make  a 
journey  inland  after  everything  is  settled  in  Ithaca,  and 
that  he  is  to  die  a  peaceful  death,  and  these  things  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  wanderings  and  return  of  Odysseus. 


THE   HOMERIC  QUESTION  27 

The  eleventh  book,  the  language  of  which  is  less  early 
than  that  of  most  of  the  Odyssey,  was  inserted  merely  for 
the  sake  of  adding  one  mo^e  adventure,  or  it  belongs — with 
other  matter,  which  has  been  lost — to  a  poem  dealing  with 
the  later  fortunes  of  Odysseus.  Both  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
contain  many  other  passages  more  or  less  inconsistent  with 
each  other.  The  evidence  is  cumulative,  and  the  examples 
here  given  do  not  in  themselves  constitute  a  conclusive 
proof  that  neither  poem  is  the  work  of  one  author,  but 
they  show  one  of  the  lines  along  which  the  proof  is  to  be 
reached. 

The  dialect  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey — for,  in  spite  of 
many  variations,  it  may  still  be  spoken  of  as  one  dialect — 
was  never  the  ordinary  language  of  any  place 
8  ia  ect"  or  people.  It  is  a  conventional  language,  used 
only  by  the  poets.  For  the  most  part  it  is  Ionic,  but  it 
contains  many  elements  of  iEolic  speech,  numerous  Atti- 
cisms, and  not  a  few  false  forms,  introduced,  no  doubt, 
when  the  original  forms  were  no  longer  understood.  How 
is  this  dialect  to  be  accounted  for  ?  The  false  forms  need 
not  detain  us  further.  The  Atticisms  are  accounted  for  by 
Wolf  and  his  followers  as  a  result  of  the  revision  of  Homer 
under  Pisistratus.  It  is,  however,  very  doubtful  if  such  a 
revision  ever  took  place.  The  tradition  that  it  did  take 
place  seems,  to  be  sure,  to  go  back  at  least  as  far  as  Dieu- 
chidas  of  Megara,  who  wrote  in  the  fourth  century  b.  c, 
though  Cicero  is  the  earliest  extant  author  who  directly 
attests  it,  but  it  seems  to  owe  its  origin  to  the  fact  that  the 
poems  were  recited  at  the  Panathenaic  festival,  which  was 
specially  connected  with  Pisistratus.  The  Attic  forms 
appearing  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are  the  natural  result 
of  the  long-continued  intellectual  and  literary  supremacy 
of  Athens.  Had  some  Doric  city  occupied  her  position, 
our  Homer  would  be  infected  with  Doric  forms.  The 
presence  of  the  numerous  ^Eolisms  in  Homer  is  most  easily 
explained   on  the   assumption   that   poems   originally — at 


28  GREEK  LITERATURE 

least  in  their  elements — ^Eolic  were  subsequently  worked 
over  into  Ionic  Greek.  The  condition  of  the  poems  indi- 
cates that  this  work  was  not  done  by  one  person  nor  at  one 
time. 

The  language  of  the  Homeric  poems — iEolic  Greek  not 
entirely  obliterated  by  Ionic— points  to  Asia  Minor  or  some 
.  .   „.  adjacent  island  as  the  place  of  their  composi- 

Asia  Minor  J  .£•  r 

the  home  of  tion,  an(*  there  are  also  other  reasons  ior 
Homeric  assigning  them   to   that  region.     In  the  first 

poetry.  place,  the  geographical  knowledge  displayed  in 

the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  is  limited  for  the  most  part  to  the 
eastern  portions  of  the  Greek  world,  the  west  being  a  dim 
region  of  darkness  except  that  in  parts  of  the  Odyssey  some 
acquaintance  with  Italy  and  Sicily  appears.  Besides,  the 
descriptions  and  imagery  are  for  the  most  part  Asiatic  rather 
than  European  in  character.  Furthermore,  considerations 
of  a  more  general  historical  nature  show  that  Asia  Minor  is 
the  only  region  in  which  the  Homeric  poems  would  have 
been  composed. 

About  1000  b.  c.  a  great  movement  of  tribes  took  place 
in  Greece — a  movement  extending  over  many  years — which 
is  known  by  the  somewhat  inadequate  name  of 
Asf  ^inor  °  ^e  dorian  invasion.  At  that  time  great  num- 
bers of  iEolic  Greeks  passed  over  to  Asia  Minor, 
followed — or  in  some  cases  accompanied — by  their  Ionic 
kinsmen.  The  Greeks  carried  with  them  to  Asia  Minor 
whatever  civilization  they  had  previously  possessed,  and, 
being  in  close  contact  with  the  ancient  nations  of  the  East, 
they  speedily  attained  a  high  degree  of  culture  and  luxury. 
In  the  courts  of  the  leaders  of  Asiatic  Greek  society  the 
Homeric  poems  were  chanted  by  poets  and  rhapsodes,  or 
professional  reciters.  That  their  origin  was  JEolic  is  shown 
not  only  by  the  ^Eolisms  in  their  language,  but  also  by  the 
fact  that  all  the  chief  heroes  are  of  iEolic  birth,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Pylian  Nestor,  who  is  Ionian,  and  he  may 
be  a  comparatively  late  addition,  inasmuch  as  he  nowhere 


THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION  29 

plays  such  a  part  as  to  affect  the  main  action  of  the  story. 
The  homes  of  the  Homeric  heroes  are  in  Thessaly  and 
Boeotia  for  the  most  part,  the  ancient  dwellings  of  the 
iEolians.  Agamemnon,  Menelaus,  and  Diomedes  are,  to  be 
sure,  assigned  to  the  Peloponnesus,  but  there  are  indica- 
tions that  even  this  is  the  result  of  a  transference,  and  that 
their  real  origin  is  to  be  sought  farther  north. 

The  ^Eolic  Greeks  in  their  early  homes  in  the  northern 
part  of  Greece  possessed  sagas  and  lays  about  their  gods 
Origin  of  lays  and  heroes.  These  they  carried  with  them  in 
in  northern  their  wanderings,  adding  to  them  uncon- 
Greece.  sciously  touches  of  local  color  as  they  went. 

If  Agamemnon,  king  of  men,  lives  in  the  Peloponnesus,  it 
is  because  iEolians  sojourned  there,  and  some  of  their 
legends  became  attached  to  Peloponnesian  soil.  After- 
ward the  great  migration  to  Asia  Minor  took  place.  No 
doubt  the  immigrants  had  to  overcome  the  armed  opposi- 
tion of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country — opposition  none  the 
less  violent  and  protracted  because  it  proved  to  be  unavail- 
ing. Later,  when  the  Greeks  were  firmly  established,  and 
had  grown  rich  and  cultivated  in  Asia  Minor,  the  poets  not 
unnaturally  attached  early  legends  of  mythical  combats  to 
the  real  deeds  of  their  more  immediate  ancestors,  and  thus 
the  Thessalian  Achilles,  the  Mycenaean  Agamemnon,  the 
Argive  Diomedes,  and  other  chiefs  from  different  parts  of 
Greece  are  made  to  meet  about  the  walls  of  Troy,  there  to 
combine  in  repeating  deeds  once  performed  by  them  or 
their  counterparts  somewhere  in  Boeotia  against  another 
Hector  and  about  another  Ilium — for  Hector,  "  the  Holder," 
is  a  good  Greek  name,  and  iEneas  may  well  be  originally  a 
hero,  or  even  the  hero,  of  the  Thessalian  iEneanes.1 

The  civilization  described  in  the  Homeric  poems  is  not 

1  We  may  go  further  back  and  find  an  ancient  sun  myth  in  the 
story  of  Paris  and  Helen,  as  well  as  many  nature  myths  in  the  tales  of 
the  Odyssey,  but  such  matters  belong  rather  to  comparative  mythology 
than  to  Greek  literature. 


30  GREEK  LITERATURE 

primitive,  but  is  different  from  the  civilization  of  classical 
times.  In  Homer  the  chiefs  drive  to  battle  in  chariots, 
Homeric  and  whereas  in  classical  times  the  Greeks  used  cav- 
later  Greek  airy,  to  be  sure,  but  no  chariots  in  war.  The 
civilizations  change  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  plains 
compare  .  ^  iphessaly  offer  an  opportunity  for  the  use  of 
chariots,  which  the  rugged  hills  and  narrow  valleys  of  cen- 
tral and  southern  Greece  do  not.  The  weapons  of  the 
Homeric  chiefs  are  of  bronze,  those  of  the  later  Greeks  of 
iron.  The  mighty  shield  of  Ajax — or  the  shield  of  Achilles, 
with  its  elaborate  ornamentation 1 — has  little  resemblance 
to  the  comparatively  small  targe  of  the  classical  period. 
Nor  is  the  costume  of  Homer's  women  identical  with  the 
clothing  worn  in  later  times.  The  wealth  ascribed  by 
Homer  to  the  Achaean  chiefs  is  far  in  excess  of  anything 
known  in  later  Greece  (if  we  leave  out  of  account  the  col- 
lective wealth  of  cities  such  as  Athens),  and  the  descrip- 
tions of  palaces  do  not  agree  with  what  is  known  of  Greek 
dwellings  in  later  times.  Works  of  art  deserving  especial 
admiration  are  ascribed  in  Homer  (if  not  to  a  divine  ar- 
tificer) invariably  to  an  Oriental  source,  which  would  not  be 
possible  in  Greece  later,  at  any  rate,  than  the  seventh  cen- 
tury. The  patriarchal  government,  too,  described  in  the 
Homeric  poems,  although  it  is  in  some  respects  like  the 
governments  of  some  of  the  Greek  cities  in  Asia  Minor,  is 
clearly  in  part  different  and  earlier. 

In  various  parts   of   Greece — notably  at  Mycenae  and 
Tiryns,  but  also  in  Attica,  Bceotia,  and  Thessaly— in  Crete, 

and  at  Hissarlik,  in  the  Troad,  extensive  re- 
evidence0^10*    mams  nave  keen  f°un(l  of  a  civilization  which 

must  have  existed  before  1000  b.  c.  These 
remains  agree  in  many  respects  with  the  descriptions  con- 
tained in  the  Homeric  poems.  So  the  Homeric  palace  and 
the  ruins  of  Tiryns  explain  each  other,  and  Tiryns  has  fur- 
nished a  blue  glass  frieze  which  shows  what  is  meant  by 
1  Iliad,  xviii,  478  ff. 


THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION  31 

the  "  frieze  of  kyanos,"  in  the  palace  of  Alcinous,1  while 
the  use  of  copper  for  ornamentation  in  the  great  tomb  at 
Mycenae  proves  that  the  metallic  splendor  of  the  palaces  of 
Alcinous 2  and  Menelaus 3  is  not  altogether  the  creation  of 
the  poet's  imagination.  It  is  true  that  the  remains  of  this 
so-called  "Mycenaean  civilization"  do  not  entirely  agree 
with  what  we  find  in  Homer.  So  the  remains  show  that 
the  dead  were  buried,  whereas  the  Homeric  heroes  were 
burned ;  the  remains  show  an  almost  complete  ignorance  of 
the  use  of  iron,  whereas  iron  is  more  or  less  familiar  in 
Homer;  the  armor  discovered  is  not  exactly  what  the 
Homeric  descriptions  would  lead  one  to  expect,  and  there 
are  some  further  points  of  difference.  The  Homeric  poems 
do  not  describe  a  civilization  identical  with  that  made 
known  by  the  discoveries  made  at  Mycenae  and  elsewhere, 
but  they  do  describe  a  civilization  which  is  a  legitimate 
development  therefrom. 

The  Homeric  poems  are  not  the  product  of  one  mind 
nor  of  one  time.  Some  parts,  which  had  already  on  other 
The  date  of  grounds  been  regarded  as  the  earliest,  agree 
the  Iliad  and  more  closely  than  others  with  the  "  Mycenaean  " 
Odyssey.  remains,  and  it  may  not  be  too  rash  to  affirm 

that  these  early  portions  were  composed  not  long  after  the 
^Eolian  Greeks  reached  Asia  Minor,  when  their  recollec- 
tions of  their  earlier  homes  in  Greece  were  comparatively 
fresh.  If  the  iEolian  emigration  took  place,  roughly  speak- 
ing, about  1000  B.  c,  these  earliest  parts  belong  to  the  tenth 
century,  perhaps  to  the  first  half  of  that  century,  and  all 
the  parts  of  the  poems  which  ever  existed  in  a  purely  iEolic 
form  were  probably  finished  in  that  form  not  much  after 
900  B.C.  As  the  Ionic  colonies  increased  in  wealth  and 
culture,  they  furnished  the  most  profitable  audiences  for 
the  traveling  bards  or  rhapsodes,  and  the  iEolic  poems 
were  changed  so  as  to  be  understood  by  Ionians.  The 
poems  probably  existed  in  Ionic  form  as  early  as  the  eighth 

,  vii,  87.  2  Ibid.,  vii,  84  fl.  3  Ibid.,  iv,  72  ff. 


32  GREEK  LITERATURE 

century  b.  c.  Even  after  this  change  had  been  effected 
additions  were  made  in  the  "  epic  "  dialect — that  is,  in  the 
artificial  dialect  formed  by  the  rhapsodes  in  adapting  iEolic 
poems  to  Ionian  audiences,  the  dialect  in  which  Greek  epic 
poetry  continued  to  be  written  as  long  as  it  was  written  at 
all.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  assign  exact  dates 
to  the  different  parts  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  to  tell 
whether  this  or  that  part  existed  independently  before  it 
was  added  to  the  rest,  or  was  originally  composed  as  an 
addition,  and  when  and  by  whom  the  poems  were  finally 
completed  in  their  present  form.  It  is,  however,  most  prob- 
able that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  had  both  reached  approx- 
imately their  present  form  not  far  from  700  B.  c,  though 
scattered  lines  were  added  later.  The  Iliad  is  for  the  most 
part  older  than  the  Odyssey ;  its  plot  is  simpler  and  its 
language  earlier ;  its  gods  and  heroes  alike  more  primitive. 
Certain  parts  of  the  Odyssey  are,  to  be  sure,  earlier  than 
the  latest  parts  of  the  Iliad,  but  if  we  regard  the  two  poems 
as  wholes,  the  Iliad  is  the  older.  Eoughly  speaking,  the 
Iliad  may  be  assigned  to  a  time  not  much  after  800  b.  c, 
the  Odyssey  to  about  700 ;  but  any  exact  dates  are  impos- 
sible, especially  as  each  of  the  two  great  poems  really  be- 
longs to  several  periods. 

It  is  clear  that  our  Homeric  poems  are  the  result  of 
gradual  development.  Was  there  then  any  one  who  can  be 
N  th"  regarded  as  the  author  of  the  poems,  any  one 

known  of  the  ^°  whom  we  can  give  the  name  of  Homer? 
personality  Certainly  some  one  must  have  composed  the 
of  Homer.  original  iEolic  lays,  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  any  large  proportion  of  them  was  composed 
by  the  same  man.  Again,  some  one  must  have  been  instru- 
mental in  giving  its  final  form  to  each  of  the  great  poems, 
but  that  the  same  person  was  concerned  with  both  Iliad 
and  Odyssey — not  to  speak  of  all  the  other  poems  which 
were  once  regarded  as  Homeric — is  highly  improbable,  not 
to  say  impossible.     It  may  be  that  there  was  at  some  time 


THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION  33 

a  bard  who  so  far  excelled  his  fellows  that  his  name  alone 
has  been  preserved,  and  his  name  may  have  been  Homer. 
The  word  ofirjpos  means  "  hostage/'  but  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  have  been  used  as  a  proper  name.  If 
such  a  person  ever  existed,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing 
what  part,  if  any,  he  had  in  the  composition  of  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey.  Something  about  the  poems  we  know,  but 
about  Homer  nothing.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  an- 
cient so-called  biographies  of  Homer  are  utterly  untrust- 
worthy and  the  ancient  portraits  purely  imaginary. 

Writing  was  practised  for  ages  before  the  Homeric  times 
by  Babylonians,  Egyptians,  and  other  peoples,  and  recent 
discoveries  have  shown  that  the  people  of  Crete  had  a 
peculiar  system  of  writing  at  least  as  early  as  the  twelfth 
century  b.  c.  This  knowledge  was  probably  shared  by  the 
inhabitants  of  other  places  in  and  near  the  iEgean  Sea. 
In  the  Iliad  (Book  VI,  line  168)  "baleful  signs"  inscribed 
upon  a  folded  tablet  are  mentioned,  by  means  of  which 
King  Prcetus  sent  a  message  that  Bellerophon  should  be 
killed ;  but  whether  these  signs  were  really  alphabetic  or 
only  pictorial  is  not  stated.     Writing  was  known  to  the 

Greeks  at  least  as  early  as  700  b.  c.  ;  for  Archil- 
edge  of  ochus,  who  is  supposed  to  have  lived  not  far 
writing  from '  that  time,  speaks  of  a  skytale  as  some- 
among  the        thing  perfectly  familiar.     Now  a  skytale  was 

a  staff  on  which  a  strip  of  leather  was  rolled 
for  writing  purposes.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence  that  writ- 
ing was  familiar  to  the  Greeks  by  600  b.  c,  familiar  in  the 
sense  that  it  was  practised  not  only  by  professional  scribes, 
but  by  others,  as,  for  instance,  the  mercenary  soldiers  who 
cut  their  names  on  a  statue  at  Abu  Simbel,  far  up  the  Nile. 
There  was,  to  be  sure,  no  general  reading  public  until  the 
fifth  century,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  schools  or  individ- 
ual rhapsodes  should  not  make  and  possess  copies  of  the 
Homeric  poems  long  before  that  time.  In  all  probability 
the  Homeric  poems  were  written  as  soon  as  they  attained 


34  GREEK   LITERATURE 

their  present  length,  or  even  before  the  latest  additions  were 
made.  It  may  be  possible  for  the  human  memory  to  retain 
the  many  verses  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  but  inasmuch 
as  writing  was  known  at  the  time  to  which  these  poems 
must  be  assigned,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  they  were 
written  from  the  beginning. 

Different  copies  or  editions  of  the  Homeric  poems  must 
have  differed  considerably,  for  ancient  quotations  from  the 
Alexandrian  IltoA  an(i  Odyssey  do  not  always  agree  with 
gram-  our  texts.     The  general  agreement  of  existing 

marians.  manuscripts  is  due  in  great  measure  to  ancient 

editors,  especially  to  the  grammarians  of  Alexandria,  the 
most  important  of  whom,  so  far  as  Homer  is  concerned,  was 
Aristarchus,  about  220-150  B.  c.  The  division  into  twenty- 
four  books  designated  by  the  twenty-four  letters  of  the  Greek 
alphabet  is  also  the  work  of  the  Alexandrian  grammarians. 

The  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are,  then,  not  the  works  of  one 
great  poet,  but  the  result  of  a  national  development.  For 
centuries  the  genius  of  the  most  gifted  race  the  world  has 
ever  known  was  devoted  to  the  creation  and  perfecting  of 
epic  poetry.  Of  all  the  poems  of  those  centuries  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  were  alone  preserved  by  the  admiration  of 
later  times,  and  these  have  come  down  to  us.  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  if  we  find  in  them,  in  spite  of  some  unevenness, 
an  excellence  of  workmanship,  a  directness  of  narrative,  a 
clearness  of  expression,  a  vividness  of  dramatic  presenta- 
tion, a  wealth  of  imagery,  and  a  beauty  of  language  une- 
qualed  in  any  other  epic  poems. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EPIC  CYCLE-SPORTIVE  POEMS-THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS 

Epic  poems  besides  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey — The  Homeridae — The 
Epic  Cycle — The  Cypria — The  Nostoi — The  Telegonia — The  ^Jthiopis 
—The  Little  Iliad— The  Sack  of  Troy— -The  Theban  cycle— Other 
epics — Mock-heroic  poems — The  Margites — The  Battle  of  the  Frogs 
and  the  Mice — The  Homeric  hymns. 

Epic  poetry  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Iliad  and 

the  Odyssey.     There  were  certainly  many  epic  poems  before 

the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  attained  their  pres- 

er  epic  Q^  form  an(j  there  were  also  many  after  that 
poems.  J 

time.    On  the  island  of  Chios  there  was  a  school 

or  family  of  poets  and  rhapsodes  called  the  Homeridae,  who 
regarded  Homer  as  their  founder,  and  who  continued  to 
tell  in  verse  the  stories  of  the  gods  and  heroes.  It  is  due 
to  them  that  Homer  is  often  said  to  have  been  born  at  Chios. 
There  were  also  many  other  epic  poets  in  various  places. 
The  works  of  all  these  poets  are  lost,  nothing  remaining  to  us 
except  brief  fragments  preserved  as  quotations  in  the  writ, 
ings  of  later  authors.  The  so-called  tabulai  Iliacm  (stone 
tablets  on  which  were  carved,  for  the  instruction  of  Eoman 
school  children,  scenes  from  the  Trojan  story  with  refer- 
ences to  the  poems  in  which  the  scenes  were  described)  pre- 
serve for  us  some  titles  and  give  us  information  about  the 
contents  of  some  of  the  poems.  Many  of  the  poems  them- 
selves must  have  been  lost  and  forgotten  at  an  early  date, 
though  many  others  were  preserved  as  late  as  the  time  of 
the  grammarian  Proclus,  who  lived  in  the  second  century 

35 


36  GREEK  LITERATURE 

after  Christ.  We  know  little  of  the  poems  and  less  of  their 
authors.  Many  of  the  poems  were  ascribed  to  Homer  until 
the  progress  of  criticism  made  it  evident  that  they  were 
not  of  the  same  origin  as  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey,  but  it 
was  then  too  late  to  discover  with  certainty  who  the  real 
authors  were.  In  some  cases  the  names  given  by  ancient 
writers  may  be  correct,  but  it  is  now  impossible  to  sift  the 
evidence  so  as  to  reach  sure  conclusions.  The  poems 
which  were  preserved  throughout  the  classical  period  ap- 
pear to  have  owed  their  preservation  and  such  popularity  as 
they  enjoyed  rather  to  the  subject-matter  than  to  literary 
excellence,  though  some  of  them,  which  were  ascribed  to 
Homer,  were  probably  of  real  poetic  merit.  In  later  times 
prose  abstracts  of  these  poems  were  made  as  handbooks  of 
mythology,  and  such  a  handbook  was  called  an  epic  cycle 
(or  circle).  In  modern  times,  the  name  epic  cycle  has  been 
transferred  to  the  poems  themselves,  and  their  authors  are 
called  the  cyclic  poets. 

Some  of  the  component  parts  of  the  poems  of  the  epic 
cycle  are,  like  the  component  parts  of  the  Iliad  and  the 
Contents  of  Odyssey,  very  old ;  in  fact,  some  passages  in 
the  Epic  the  Odyssey  seem  to  refer  to  the  contents  of 

Cycle.  some  of  them.     But  the  poems  themselves,  as 

they  were  known  to  the  Greeks  of  the  classical  period,  were 
doubtless  all  later  than  the  Iliad,  and  probably  than  the 
Odyssey,  and  may  be  assigned  for  the  most  part  to  the 
seventh  century  B.  c.  Proclus  says  that  the  epic  cycle  told 
the  myths  of  the  Greeks  from  the  union  of  Uranus  and 
Gsea  (Heaven  and  Earth),  through  all  the  tales  of  the  gods 
and  heroes,  to  the  death  of  Odysseus  at  the  hands  of  his 
son  Telegonus.  Proclus  does  not  say  that  the  stories  about 
Thebes  were  included  in  the  cycle,  but,  as  the  cycle  em- 
braced all  tales  of  gods  and  heroes,  they  must  have  been. 
The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  included  in  the  cycle,  each 
in  its  proper  place. 

The  Trojan  part  of  the  epic  cycle  began  with  an  epic 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  37 

called  the  Cypria  (ra  KvVpia  hrrj),  either  because  the  author 
was  born  in  Cyprus  or  because  the  power  of  the  Cyprian 
goddess  Aphrodite  was  shown  in  the  abduction 
ypna.  ^  Helen,  which  was  the  main  subject  of  the 
poem.  The  Cypria  is  attributed  to  Homer,  Stasinus,  He- 
gesias,  Creophylus,  and  Cyprias.  Evidently  the  author  was 
unknown,  but  that  the  poem  was  of  Cyprian  origin  is  prob- 
able enough.  The  story  begins  with  the  plan  of  Zeus  that 
the  overpopulated  earth  should  be  relieved  by  a  great  war. 
Then  follows  the  story  of  the  marriage  of  Peleus  and  The- 
tis, the  judgment  of  Paris  (see  above,  page  11),  the  abduction 
of  Helen  and  the  adventures  of  Paris  and  Helen  on  the  way 
to  Troy,  the  gathering  of  the  Greeks,  their  departure  for 
Asia,  and  their  adventures  before  reaching  Troy,  the  land- 
ing at  Troy,  and  the  various  events  of  the  war  up  to  the 
point  at  which  the  Iliad  begins.  Many  myths  not  origi- 
nally connected  with  the  Trojan  War  were  woven  into  this 
long  poem  of  eleven  books,  and  the  whole  must  have  been 
rather  a  collection  of  tales  of  the  heroes  than  a  work  of 
real  artistic  unity.  It  was  probably  not  one  of  the  earlier 
poems  of  the  cycle,  and  is  mentioned  first  simply  because 
it  tells  the  tale  of  the  events  before  the  point  at  which  the 
Iliad  begins. 

The  second  poem  in  the  cycle  was  the  Iliad,  which  was 
followed  by  the  JEtMopis,  in  five  books,  attributed  to  Arc- 
tinus  of  Miletus,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  about 
e     t  i-        rj/yQ  B  c>     j^  any  ra^  ^e  p0em  seems  to  be- 
long to  the  eighth  century.     After  the  burial 
of  Hector,  the  Amazons,  a  tribe  of  female  warriors,  come 
to  the  assistance  of  the  Trojans,  under  the  leadership  of 
Penthesilea,  daughter  of  Ares.     She  is  killed  by  Achilles, 
who,  however,  allows  the  Trojans  to  bury  her  and  the  other 
dead.     Thersites  accuses  Achilles  of  having  been  in  love 
with  Penthesilea,  whereupon  Achilles  kills  him  with  a  blow 
of  his  fist,  after  which  he  sails  to  Lesbos  to  be  purified  of 
blood-guiltiness.     The  next  ally  of  the  Trojans  was  Mem- 


38  GREEK  LITERATURE 

non,  son  of  Eos,  the  dawn.  He  was  king  of  the  Ethiopians, 
which  fact  gives  the  name  to  the  poem.  Achilles  was 
warned  that  if  he  slew  Memnon,  his  own  death  must  follow 
quickly ;  but  when  Antilochus,  the  friend  of  Achilles,  was 
slain  by  Memnon,  Achilles  in  return  slew  Memnon,  who 
was  carried  away  by  his  mother,  Eos,  and  made  immortal  by 
Zeus.  Achilles  then  drove  the  Trojans  into  the  city,  but 
was  himself  slain  by  Paris.  His  body  was  with  difficulty 
saved  from  the  enemy.  Odysseus  carried  it  to  the  Greek 
camp,  while  Ajax  kept  the  Trojans  at  bay.  After  this  An- 
tilochus was  buried,  and  Thetis  and  her  nymphs  lamented 
over  Achilles.  His  body  was  placed  on  the  funeral  pyre, 
and  elaborate  games  were  held  in  his  honor,  but  the  body 
itself  was  carried  off  by  Thetis  to  the  isle  of  Leuce.  At 
the  funeral  games  the  Grecian  chiefs  contended  for  the 
arms  of  Achilles,  which  were  to  be  given  to  the  most 
worthy.  Ajax  and  Odysseus  were  the  most  prominent 
claimants,  and  the  arms  were  awarded  to  Odysseus.  The 
position  of  Antilochus  in  this  poem  is  similar  to  that  of 
Patroclus  in  the  Iliad,  and  Memnon  is,  in  some  respects,  a 
repetition  of  Hector,  while  the  funeral  games  in  honor  of 
Achilles  are  a  copy  of  those  in  honor  of  Patroclus.  It  is 
evident  that  Arctinus  knew  the  Iliad  and  imitated  it. 

The  next  poem  of  the  cycle  is  the  Little  Iliad,  gener- 
ally ascribed  to  Lesches  of  Lesbos,  though  Hellanicus  of 

Lesbos,  ascribed  it  to  Cinsethon  of  Sparta. 
Iliad  *    6        Eusebius  gives  660  b.  c.  as  the  date  of  Lesches, 

which  is  perhaps  not  far  from  the  date  of  the 
poem.  The  Little  Iliad,  in  four  books,  told  of  the  strife 
of  Ajax  and  Odysseus  for  the  armor  of  Achilles;  of  the 
consequent  madness  and  suicide  of  Ajax ;  of  the  increase  of 
the  Greek  and  Trojan  armies  by  reenforcements ;  of  the 
death  of  Paris  by  an  arrow  of  Philoctetes ;  the  death  of 
Eurypylus  at  the  hands  of  Neoptolemus,  the  son  of  Achilles  ; 
the  stealing  of  the  Palladium  by  Odysseus  and  Diomedes, 
and  the  building  of  the  wooden  horse.     The  poem  was  evi- 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  39 

dently  full  of  action,  and  it  appears  to  have  been  more 
popular  than  most  of  the  other  poems  of  the  cycle. 

After  the  Little  Iliad  comes  the  Sack  of  Troy  ('IAtbv 
Ilc/oo-ts),  by  Arctinus,  in  two  books,  according  to  Proclus. 

This  may  really  have  been  a  separate  poem  not 
The  Sack  of      directly  connected  with  the  jfitMopis ;  but  it  is 

at  least  equally  probable  that  Arctinus  wrote  a 
long  poem  telling  the  whole  story  of  the  Trojan  War  after 
the  death  of  Hector,  and  that  Proclus,  instead  of  taking 
him  as  his  authority  for  the  whole  story,  preferred  to  men- 
tion the  Little  Iliad,  as  that  was  a  rather  popular  poem,  and 
after  giving  that  as  his  authority  for  the  part  of  the  story 
between  the  death  of  Achilles  and  the  last  events  of  the 
war,  returned  to  Arctinus  f&r  his  account  of  the  taking  of 
the  city.  If  this  view  is  correct,  Arctinus  is  to  be  credited 
with  one  long  poem  of  at  least  ten  books,  instead  of  an 
^EJthiopis  in  five  books  and  a  Sack  of  Troy  in  two  books. 
The  Sack  of  Troy,  according  to  Proclus,  told  of  the  en- 
trance of  the  wooden  horse  into  the  city  after  the  fruitless 
opposition  of  Laocoon ;  of  the  death  of  Laocoon ; 1  the  de- 
ceit of  Sinon ;  the  burning  of  the  city ;  the  slaughter  of 
the  infant  Astyanax,  son  of  Hector;  and  the  sacrifice  of 
Polyxena,  Hector's  sister,  at  the  tomb  of  Achilles.  The 
story  seems  to  have  been  told  nearly  as  Virgil  tells  it  in  the 
second  book  of  the  ^Eneid.  Indeed,  it  is  to  this  poem  and 
others  of  the  Trojan  cycle  that  Virgil  is  indebted  for  much 
of  the  material  for  the  first  six  books  of  his  great  work. 

The  Sack  of  Troy  was  followed  by  the  Nostoi,  the  Re- 
turns.    Proclus  attributes  the  Nostoi  to  Agias,  of  Troezen, 

„,    _      .       and  the  poem  is  said  to  have  had  five  books. 
The  Nostoi.       T        „       r.    _.,.'       ,, 

In  all  probability  there  were  several  poems  of 

this  name,  for  the  name  is  a  general  one,  and  could  be 

applied  to  a  collection  of  poems  relating  the  adventures  of 

the  various  heroes  on  their  way  home  from  Troy.      The 

Odyssey  itself  tells  of  the  Return  of  Odysseus,  and  there 

1  Cf.  Virgil,  JEneid,  ii,  163  ff. 


The  Tele- 


40  GREEK  LITERATURE 

are  several  passages  in  it  which  seem  to  presuppose  the 
existence  of  poems,  or  at  least  of  stories,  relating  to  the 
Returns  of  other  heroes.  The  Nostoi,  according  to  Proclus, 
told  of  the  quarrel  of  Agamemnon  and  Menelaus  when  the 
Greeks  were  on  the  point  of  setting  sail  from  Troy,1  of  the 
wanderings  of  Menelaus,8  the  journey  by  land  of  Calchas 
and  others  to  Colophon,  the  death  of  the  Oilean  Ajax,3 
the  wanderings  and  final  return  to  his  home  of  Neoptole- 
mus,  the  murder  of  Agamemnon  by  Clytsemnestra  and  iEgis- 
thus,  the  vengeance  inflicted  upon  them  by  Orestes  and 
Pylades,  and  the  return  of  Menelaus.4  This  poem  also 
contained  an  account  of  a  visit  to  the  lower  world. 

The  last  poem  of  the  Trojan  cycle  was  the  Telegonia,  by 
Eugammon  of  Cyrene,  who  lived  about  570  b.  c.     This  was 
apparently  not  only  the  last  in  the  order  of  the 
events  narrated,  but  also  the  latest  in  date  of 

goina. 

the  poems  included  in  the  cycle.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  worst  as  well  as  the  latest.  It  told  how 
Odysseus  went  through  various  adventures  after  destroying 
the  suitors  in  his  house,  and  was  finally  slain  in  battle  by 
Telegonus,  his  son  by  Circe.  After  that  Telegonus  took 
Penelope  and  Telemachus  to  Circe's  isle  of  ^Esea,  where 
they  were  made  immortal,  and  Telemachus  married  Circe, 
while  Telegonus  married  Penelope. 

Besides  the  poems  that  told  the  tale  of  the  Trojan  War 
and  its  heroes,  there  were  others  belonging  to  the  epic 
cycle.  These  told  the  legends  of  Thebes  ;  and  just  as  the 
poems  about  the  Trojan  War  are  called  the  Trojan  cycle,  so 

these  are  called  the  Theban  cycle.  The  The- 
oyole  bais9  in  seven  thousand  verses,  told  the  story 

of  the  house  of  Labdacus,  and  especially  the 
attack  of  the  seven  Argive  chieftains  upon  Thebes.  The 
poem  was  ascribed  to  Homer,  but  the  little  we  know  of  it  is 
enough  to  show  that  it  was  later  than  the  Iliad  or  the 

1  Cf.  Odyssey,  iii,  134  ff.  *  Ibid.,  iv,  351  ff. 

»  Ibid.,  iv,  409  ff.  4  Ibid.,  iii,  262  ff. 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  41 

Odyssey.  The  Epigoni,  of  about  the  same  length  as  the 
Thebdis,  told  of  the  capture  of  Thebes  by  the  descendants 
of  those  who  fell  in  the  attack  described  in  the  Thebdis. 
The  Thebdis  may  perhaps  be  identical  with  a  poem  called 
the  Driving  out  of  Amphiaraus,  and  the  Epigoni  may  be 
identical  with  the  Alcmceonis,  but  this  is  very  uncertain. 
The  (Edipodeia  contained  the  story  of  King  (Edipus  in 
about  six. thousand  lines.  It  is  ascribed  to  the  Lacedae- 
monian Cinsethon,  whose  date  Eusebius  gives  as  760  b.  c. 

There  were  also  other  epic  poems  of  early  date,  but 
probably  not  included  in  the  epic  cycle.  The  Capture  of 
(Echalia  told  how  Heracles  won  the  beautiful 
Iole  by  taking  her  native  town.  The  poem 
was  ascribed  to  Homer,  but  also  to  Creophylus  of  Samos. 
The  Phoca'is  is  said  to  have  had  its  name  from  the  fact 
that  Homer  composed  it  in  Phocaea.  It  may  have  been 
identical  with  the  Minyas,  a  poem  about  the  capture  of 
Orchomenus  by  Heracles.  In  this  a  visit  to  the  lower 
world  is  described,  in  which  the  ferryman  Charon  appears. 
The  Dana'is  told  of  the  pursuit  and  marriage  of  the  fifty 
daughters  of  Danaus  by  the  fifty  sons  of  iEgyptus.  Other 
epics  mentioned  are  the  Titanomachia,  or  Battle  of  the 
Gods  and  Titans,  ascribed  to  Arctinus  and  also  to  Eume- 
lus;  the  Heracleia,  or  tale  of  Heracles,  and  the  Heroic 
Theogamies,  a  collection  of  many  myths,  both  ascribed  to 
Pisander  of  Rhodes;  and  the  Atthis,  or  Amazonia,  telling 
of  the  attack  of  the  Amazons  upon  Attica. 

Little  is  known  of  any  of  the  lost  epic  poems,  but  they 
are  of  real  importance  in  the  history  of  Greek  literature, 
importance  because  from  them  the  great  dramatists  de- 
of  the  lost  rived  the  plots  for  their  plays,  many  lyric  poets 
epics.  drew  the  stories  which  they  introduced  into 

their  poems,  artists — especially  vase-painters — took  the  sub- 
jects of  their  works,  and  thus  these  epics,  by  giving  per- 
manent and  artistic  form  to  the  myths  which  were  current 
among  the  Greeks,  furnished  a  large  part  of  the  subject 


42  GREEK  LITERATURE 

matter  for  literature  and  art  even  down  to  our  own  times. 
For  not  only  the  Greeks,  but  the  Romans  and  later  peoples, 
have  delighted  in  giving  new  forms  to  the  myths  told  in 
these  early  poems.  Virgil,  in  the  JZneid,  and  Ovid,  in  the 
Metamorphoses,  are  the  most  noted  examples  among  the 
Romans  of  this  use  of  the  material  of  the  early  Greek 
epics,  but  they  do  not  stand  .alone.  Among  English 
writers,  Milton,  Swinburne,  and  William  Morris  -are  only  a 
few  of  many  who  have  taken  pleasure  in  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  the  Romans  who  drew  their  inspiration  from 
the  early  epic  poems  of  Greece. 

All  the  epic  poems  we  have  been  considering  were  con- 
nected with  Homer,  and  most,  if  not  all  of  them  were 

actually  ascribed  to  him  as  their  author.  He 
M  e   .  was  also  regarded  as  the  author  of  poems  of 

other  kinds.  Among  these  were  sportive 
poems,  or  mock-heroic  epics.  The  earliest  and  most  fa- 
mous of  these  was  the  Margites,  which  Aristotle  still 
believed  to  be  the  work  of  Homer,  and  which  he  regarded 
as  the  source  or  germ  of  comedy,  just  as  he  found  the 
source  of  tragedy  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  The  poem 
has  also  been  ascribed  to  Pigres,  of  Halicarnassus,  brother 
of  Queen  Artemisia,  who  lived  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifth 
century  b.  c.  Margites,  the  hero  of  the  poem,  is  a  foolish 
young  man  who  "  knew  many  things,  and  knew  them  all 
badly,"  so  that  he  got  into  all  sorts  of  trouble.  The  Mar- 
gites was  written  in  heroic  hexameters  interspersed  with 
iambic  trimeters.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  iambic 
parts  are  due  to  Pigres,  who  amused  himself  by  adding 
them  to  a  poem  already  in  existence.  But  the  conjectures 
about  the  authorship  of  the  Margites  are  of  doubtful 
The  value.    The  poem  was  highly  thought  of  in  an- 

Batraoho-  tiquity,  and  seems  to  have  been  really  amusing, 
myomachia.  Another  mock-heroic  poem  sometimes  as- 

cribed to  Homer  is  the  Batrachomyomachia,  the  Battle  of 
the  Frogs  and  the  Mice.     This  has  been  preserved  to  us.    It 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  43 

is  a  parody  of  the  Homeric  epic,  full  of  harmless  fun,  with 
no  bitterness  in  its  sarcasm.  A  mouse,  Psicharpax  (Crumb- 
stealer),  escapes  from  a  cat  and  goes  to  a  pond  to  drink. 
There  the  king  of  the  frogs,  Physignathus  (Puff-cheek),  son 
of  Peleus  (the  Muddy),  asks  him  to  come  and  visit  his 
palace,  and  undertakes  to  carry  him  thither  on  his  back. 
When  they  are  in  the  midst  of  the  water,  the  sudden  ap- 
pearance of  a  water-snake  so  frightens  the  frog  that  he 
dives  and  leaves  the  mouse  to  drown.  This  is  seen  from 
the  bank  by  the  mouse  Leichopinax  (Plate-licker),  who  tells 
the  tale  to  the  tribe,  and  forthwith  the  mice  declare  war. 
The  news  is  sent  to  the  frogs,  who  prepare  for  defense. 

But  Zeus  called  the  gods  to  the  starry  heaven,  showed  them 
the  greatness  of  the  war,  and  the  mighty  warriors,  many  and  great, 
and  bearing  their  long  spears ;  and  sweetly  smiling,  asked  who  of  the 
gods  would  aid  the  frogs  and  who  the  mice  in  their  distress ;  and 
to  Athena  he  spoke:  "My  daughter,  wilt  thou  go  the  mice  to  aid  ? 
for  in  thy  temple  they  aye  skip  about,  rejoicing  in  the  fat  and  food 
from  sacrifices."  So  spoke  the  son  of  Cronus ;  and  Athena  answered 
him:  "O  father,  never  would  I  go  as  helper  to  the  mice  in  their 
distress,  since  many  evils  they  have  done  to  me,  injuring  my  fillets 
and  lamps  for  olive-oil.  But  this  which  they  did  pained  my  soul 
too  much.  They  gnawed  my  robe,  which  I  did  toil  to  weave  of 
delicate  woof,  spinning  a  delicate  thread,  and  holes  they  made 
therein;  but  the  mender  follows  me  and  duns  me  for  interest;  on 
this  account  I  am  wroth ;  for  I  wove  it  by  borrowing,  and  have  not 
wherewithal  to  pay.  Yet  not  even  so  do  I  wish  to  aid  the  frogs. 
For  they  too  are  lacking  in  firmness  of  spirit ;  but  lately  when  I  was 
returning  from  battle,  fatigued  with  much  toiling,  in  sore  need  of 
slumber,  they  did  not  allow  me,  because  of  their  shouting,  so  much 
as  a  wink.  And  I  lay  sleepless  with  my  aching  head  until  the  cock 
did  crow.  But  come,  gods,  let  us  cease  from  aiding  them,  lest  any 
one  of  us  be  wounded  with  a  sharply  pointed  lance,  or  lest  some 
person  be  struck  with  spear  or  knife ;  for  they  fight  hand  to  hand, 
e'en  though  a  god  should  go  against  them.  But  let  us  all  take 
pleasure  looking  on  their  strife  from  heaven." 1 

1  Batrachomyomachia,  168-198. 


44  GREEK  LITERATURE 

As  these  lines  parody  the  Homeric  councils  of  the  gods, 
so  other  parts  of  the  poem  make  fun  of  the  heroic  combats 
of  the  Iliad.  In  the  end,  the  frogs  are  defeated,  and  even 
Zeus  with  his  thunderbolt  would  have  been  unable  to  stop 
the  onset  of  the  victorious  mice.  He  therefore  rouses 
against  them  an  army  of  crabs,  who  bite  their  tails,  and 
their  hands  and  feet,  and  turn  the  points  of  their  spears. 
So  the  mice  flee,  "  and  now  the  sun  went  down,  and  one 
day  brought  the  ending  of  the  war."  This  poem  is  not  so 
important  as  the  Margites,  but  it  has  been  preserved,  while 
the  Mar git es  has  not.  Like  the  Margites,  it  has  been 
ascribed  to  Pigres,  of  Halicarnassus,  though  without  suffi- 
cient reason.  It  appears  to  be  Attic  work,  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury b.  c,  though  even  this  is  somewhat  uncertain.  A  few 
other  mock-heroic  epics  are  known  only  by  title. 

A  collection  of  five  longer  and  twenty-nine  shorter 
poems  in  epic  dialect  and  metre  has  come  down  to  us 
under  the  title  of  Hymns  and  Prommia  of 
Hymns1116110  H°mer  and  ^e  HomeridcB.  These  so-called 
Homeric  Hymns  are  not  hymns  at  all  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  word,  but  are  evidently  prologues,  to 
be  recited  as  introductions  to  longer  epic  poems  at  public 
festivals.  Such  festivals  were  in  honor  of  the  gods,  and  it 
is  therefore  natural  that  each  of  these  prologues  is  ad- 
dressed to  a  god.  They  are  not,  however,  religious  in  char- 
acter. They  were  recited  by  rhapsodes  contending  for 
prizes  at  the  festivals,  as  is  seen  from  the  last  lines  of  a 
short  hymn  (No.  6)  to  Aphrodite :  "  Hail,  goddess  of  the 
drooping  lashes  and  sweet  smile  !  Grant  to  me  to  gain  the 
victory  in  this  contest,  and  help  on  my  song !  But  I  will 
remember  thee  in  another  song."  The  first  poem  in  the 
Hymn  to  the  manuscript  collection  is  addressed  to  Apollo, 
Delian  and  is  evidently  made  up  of  two  hymns,  one 

Apollo.  ^o  tne  Delian  Apollo  and  one  to  the  Pythian 

Apollo.  They  were  intended  to  be  sung  at  festivals  at 
Delos  and  Delphi  respectively.     Of  all  the  hymns,  that  to 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  45 

the  Delian  Apollo  is  probably  the  best  known.     In  it  is 
found  the  following  description  of  a  festival  at  Delos : * 

But  thou  in  Delos,  Phoebus,  dost  most  delight  at  heart ;  there 
are  thy  trailing-robed  Ionians  gathered  with  their  children  and  their 
chaste  wives,  and  they  bear  thee  in  mind  and  please  thee  with  box- 
ing and  with  dance  and  song,  whenever  they  cause  a  contest  to  be 
held.  One  who  should  come  to  see  them  then  when  all  the  Ionians 
are  assembled,  would  say  they  were  immortal  and  ageless  forever; 
for  he  would  see  the  grace  of  all,  and  would  rejoice  in  heart,  looking 
upon  the  men  and  the  fair-girdled  dames,  and  on  the  swift  ships  and 
on  their  bounteous  wealth.  Then  too — and  this  is  a  great  marvel 
whose  fame  shall  never  die — there  are  the  Delian  maids,  the  servants 
of  the  One  who  shoots  from  far ;  when  they  sing  first  of  Apollo  and 
then  again,  mindful  of  Leto  and  of  Artemis  the  archer-goddess,  sing 
a  song  of  men  and  women  of  old  time,  they  charm  the  tribes  of 
men.  And  they  can  imitate  the  voices  of  all  men  and  castanets; 
and  each  would  say  that  he  himself  was  singing;  so  their  song  is 
beautifully  made  in  harmony. 

There  follows  a  somewhat  boastful  assertion  by  the 
poet,  that  if  any  one  asks  the  maids  who  is  the  best  poet, 
they  will  reply  "  a  blind  man,  and  he  dwells  in  rugged 
Chios."  This  was  naturally  understood  as  a  reference  to 
Homer  when  these  hymns  were  regarded  as  Homer's  work. 
The  hymn  is  chiefly  taken  up  with  a  narrative  of  the 
adventures  of  Leto  before  the  birth  of  Apollo,  and  of  the 
god's  birth  at  Delos. 

The  hymn  to  the  Pythian  Apollo  (No.  2)  tells  how 
Apollo  came  from  Olympus  to  Delphi  and  established  his 
worship  there.  The  various  places  through  which  he  passed 
are  mentioned,  his  conversation  with  the  nymph 
Hymn  to  Telphusa  is  given  at  length,  his  combat  with 

Apollo.  ian  Typhon,  and  his  introduction  of  the  Cretans  as 
priests  of  his  sanctuary,  are  narrated.  This 
hymn  appears  to  be  an  imitation  of  the  former  one,  com- 
posed by  a  Delphian  or  Boeotian  poet  to  contain  the  legends 

*  Hymn  I,  146-164. 


46  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  Boeotia  and  Delphi,  as  the  Delian  hymn  contains  those 
of  Delos.  The  dates  of  the  two  hymns  are  not  far  apart, 
and  probably  both  were  composed  not  far  from  600  B.  c. 

The  hymn  to  Hermes  (No.  3)  is  .the  longest  of  the  col- 
lection, containing  five  hundred  and  eighty  lines.    It  tells  in 
a  familiar  way  the  tale  of  the  birth  and  adventures  of  the 
god,  with  apparent  enjoyment  of  his  knavery. 
Hymn  to  ypQ  are  ^j^  ^ow  jjermeg5  immediately  after  his 

JX  61*1X1 6  S  * 

birth,  left  his  cradle  and  stole  the  cattle  of 
Apollo,  how  he  invented  the  lyre,  how  he  was  brought  to 
trial  before  Zeus,  and  escaped  by  perjuring  himself,  and 
how  Apollo  was  reconciled  with  him.  This  poem,  which 
was  probably  written  not  long  after  600  b.  a,  shows  that  at 
that  early  time  the  Greeks  were  not  offended  by  tales 
which  showed  their  gods  in  undignified  and  even  disgrace- 
ful acts. 

The  hymn  to  Aphrodite  (No.  4)  is  more  Homeric  in  its 
dialect  than  the  hymn  to  Hermes,  but  is  like  it  in  the  fa- 
miliar treatment  of  the  gods.  It  tells  of  the  love  of  Aphro- 
dite for  Anchises,  and  of  the  greatness  of  ^Eneas  and  his 
descendants.  Evidently  the  family  claiming  descent  from 
Anchises  was  an  important  one  at  the  time  and  place  to 
which  the  poem  belongs.  There  is  much  beauty  of  diction 
and  description  in  the  poem,  but  its  effect  is  diminished  by 
the  lack  of  dignity  and  moral  elevation. 

The  hymn  to  Demeter  is  of  Attic  origin,  as  is  seen  from 
the  Attic  diction,  as  well  as  from  the  treatment  of  the  myth, 
and  is  to  be  connected  with  some  Athenian 
religious  festival,  probably  at   Eleusis.     The 
poem  tells  how  Persephone  is  carried  off  by 
Pluto,  as  she  is  wandering  in  search  of  flowers  in  the  Ny- 
sian  plain.     She  is  especially  delighted  with  the  narcissus, 
which  is  described  in  glowing  words.     The  cry  of  Perseph- 
one was  heard   by   Hecate,  who   went   with   Demeter  to 
Helius,  from  whom  they  learned  that  Pluto  had  carried  off 
Persephone  with  the  consent   of  Zeus.     Angry  and  dis- 


THE  EPIC  CYCLE  4f 

tressed  that  her  daughter  has  been  treated  thus,  Demeter 
deserts  the  gods  to  live  among  men.  She  comes  to  Eleusis, 
where  the  daughters  of  Oeleus  meet  her  and  make  her 
nurse  to  their  brother  Triptolemus.  One  of  these  daugh- 
ters, Iambe,  is  the  first  to  make  Demeter  smile  since  her 
loss.  The  hymn  also  tells  of  the  reconciliation  of  Demeter 
with  the  gods,  and  of  the  agreement  according  to  which 
Persephone  is  to  dwell  one-third  of  the  year  in  the  lower 
world  and  two-thirds  with  her  mother  and  the  other  gods. 
There  are  many  allusions  to  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  and 
these  may  cause  some  of  the  difficulties  found  by  modern 
readers  of  the  poem.  There  is  much  beauty  of  diction  and 
nobility  of  feeling  in  this  hymn,  which  is  one  of  the  best  of 
the  collection. 

Of  the  shorter  hymns,  one  in  honor  of  Dionysus  is  at 
once  the  longest  (fifty-eight  lines)  and  the  most  interest- 
ing.    It  tells  how  the  god  was  violently  car- 
e  s  or  er      r«e^  Qg  ^  Tyrrhenian  pirates,  whom  he  ter- 
rified by  causing  grape-vines  to  grow  twining 
all  about  the  ship,  and  by  taking  upon  himself  the  form 
of  a  lion.     Finally  he  punished  the  pirates  by  changing 
them  into  dolphins.     This  scene  is  represented  by  the  bas- 
reliefs  of  the  beautiful  choregic  monument  of  Lysicrates 
at  Athens.     The  hymn  to  Athena  (No.  29)  is  thus  trans- 
lated by  Shelley : 

I  sing  the  glorious  Power  with  azure  eyes, 
Athenian  Pallas  !  tameless,  chaste,  and  wise, 
Tritogenia,  town-preserving  maid, 
Revered  and  mighty ;  from  his  awful  head 
Whom  Jove  brought  forth,  in  warlike  armor  dressed, 
Golden,  all  radiant  !  wonder  strange  possessed 
The  everlasting  gods  that  shape  to  see, 
Shaking  a  javelin  keen,  impetuously 
Rush  from  the  crest  of  aegis-bearing  Jove ; 
Fearfully  heaven  was  shaken,  and  did  move 
Beneath  the  might  of  the  Cerulean-eyed ; 
Earth  dreadfully  resounded,  far  and  wide ; 


48  GREEK  LITERATURE 

And,  lifted  from  its  depths,  the  sea  swelled  high 

In  purple  billows  ;  the  tide  suddenly 

Stood  still,  and  great  Hyperion's  son  long  time 

Checked  his  swift  steeds,  till  where  she  stood  sublime', 

Pallas  from  her  immortal  shoulders  threw 

The  arms  divine  ;  wise  Jove  rejoiced  to  view. 

Child  of  the  iEgis-bearer,  hail  to  thee  ! 

Nor  thine  nor  others'  praise  shall  unremembered  be. 

The  literary  value  of  the  Homeric  hymns  is  by  no 
means  equal.  In  some  of  them  there  are  great  beauties, 
in  others  little  to  arouse  admiration  or  interest.  And  their 
dates  appear  to  be  as  various  as  their  value.  The  hymn  to 
Pan  (No.  19)  was  written  after  the  introduction  of  his  wor- 
ship at  Athens  in  490  B.C.,  and  some  of  the  other  hymns 
may  be  still  later ;  but  the  greater  part  of  the  collection 
may  be  ascribed  to  the  period  from  about  625  to  500  b.  c. 
The  hymns  are  really  Homeric,  in  the  sense  that  they  are 
composed  in  the  dialect  of  the  Homeric  poems,  and  follow 
the  Homeric  poems  in  diction  and  general  style.  They 
have,  however,  peculiarities  of  their  own,  and  some  of  them 
show  plainly  the  influence  of  the  Boeotian  or  Hesiodic 
school. 


CHAPTEE  V 

HESIOD-DIDACTIC  AND  GENEALOGICAL  POEMS 

Hesiodic  poetry,  about  750  b.  c. — Hesiod — The  Works  and  Days — 
The  Theogony — The  Shield  of  Heracles  not  by  Hesiod — The  Eozai — 
Other  Hesiodic  poems — Other  epic  poets. 

The  epic  poetry  we  have  so  far  considered  is  associated 
with  the  name  of  Homer,  partly  because  all,  or  nearly  all, 
the  poems  were  ascribed  by  the  ancients  to  Homer  as  their 
author,  partly  because  they  resemble  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
more  or  less  closely  in  their  dialect,  style,  and  subject-mat- 
ter. These  two  reasons  are  really  only  one,  for  it  is  the 
resemblance  just  mentioned  which  led  the  ancients  to 
ascribe  to  Homer  the  cyclic  poems,  the  sportive  pieces, 

and  the  hymns.  There  is  another  class  of  epic 
The  Homeric  poetry  which  differs  from  the  Homeric  school 
!?  .  JJ  in  style  and  purpose  as  well  as  subject-matter, 

poems.  The  metre  is  the  dactylic  hexameter,  as  in  the 

Homeric  poems,  though  even  in  the  matter  of 
metre  there  are  some  differences,  and  the  dialect  is  still 
the  artificial  "  epic  "  dialect  in  which  the  Homeric  poems 
were  composed,  but  with  many  iEolic  additions  and  changes, 
and  even  some  variations  that  show  Doric  influence.  It 
would  be  pretty  clear  from  the  language  of  these  poems 
alone,  even  if  we  had  no  further  information  to  guide  us, 
that  the  poems  of  which  we  are  now  speaking  were  com- 
posed at  a  time  when  the  Homeric  poetry  was  already  fully 
developed,  but  were  not  composed  in  Asia  Minor,  nor  in 
any  part  of  Greece  where  the  dialect  spoken  was  Ionic. 

49 


50  GREEK  LITERATURE 

These  poems  are  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  whom  the  ancients  be- 
lieved to  have  been  a  contemporary  of  Homer.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  Hesiodic  poetry  is  evidently  later  than  that 
of  the  Homeric  school,  bnt  much  of  the  subject-matter  of 
the  poems  is  very  old,  and  some,  at  least,  of  the  poems 
themselves  are  earlier  than  the  later  works  of  the  Homeric 
school.  We  may  reasonably  assume  that  the  Hesiodic 
poetry  was  at  its  height  in  the  eighth  century,  perhaps  not 
far  from  750  b.  c.  The  Homeric  poems  were  intended  to 
be  sung  in  the  houses  of  the  wealthy  rulers  of  the  Ionic 
cities,  and  to  glorify  the  ancient  heroes  from  whom  those 
rulers  traced  their  descent.  The  Hesiodic  poems,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  intended  for  the  instruction  of  the  peo- 
ple, giving  precepts  for  the  conduct  of  life  and  teaching 
the  origin  of  the  world,  the  genealogy  of  the  gods,  and  the 
mythical  history  of  man. 

The  story  of  Hesiod's  life,  as  handed  down  to  us,  is  de- 
rived chiefly  from^the  worts  ascribed  to  him.  His  father 
is  said  to  have  left  his  home  at  Cyme,  an  ^olicjfrown  in 
Asia  Minor,  on  account  of  poverty,  and  to  have  settled  at 

.  Ascra,  a  small  village  in  the  territory  belong- 

ing to  Thespiae,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Helicon, 
in  Bceotia.  He  thus  returned  to  the  old  home  of  the  2Eo~ 
lians.  Here  he  lived  a  farmer's  life,  removed  from  the 
busy  commerce  of  the  coast  cities  of  Asia  Minor.  Ascra  is 
in  a  fertile  and  well-watered  region,  though  Hesiod  com- 
plains a  that  the  place  is  "  a  wretched  village,  bad  in  winter, 
disagreeable  in  summer,  and  never  good."  Here  Hesiod 
was  born,  here  he  tended  his  father's  flocks  on  Mount  Heli- 
con, and  here  the  Muses  inspired  him  to  utter  verses.  He 
afterward  went  to  live  at  Naupactus,  in  Locris,  on  the  Gulf 
of  Corinth,  and  his  dialect  shows  the  influence  of  his  Doric 
surroundings.  The  story  ends  in  a  half -fabulous  way. 
Hesiod  is  said  to  have  been  murdered  at  CEnoe,  in  Locris, 
and  his  body  thrown  into  the  sea.    There  it  floated,  escorted 

1  Works  and  Days,  639  f. 


DIDACTIC  AND  GENEALOGICAL  POEMS  51 

by  dolphins,  until  it  reached  Molycria,  where  the  Locrians 
were  celebrating  a  festival.  The  body  was  seen  and  recog- 
nized, and  the  murderers  were  speedily  detected  and  pun- 
ished. The  corpse  was  buried  at  Naupactus,  but  was  re- 
moved in  later  times  to  Orchomenus,  in  Boeotia.  It  is 
impossible  to  tell  how  much  of  this  story  is  true.  The  an- 
cients believed  it,  and  the  tomb  of  Hesiod  was  to  be  seen 
at  Orchomenus.  The  fact  that  many  poems  of  apparently 
different  origin  were  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  the  story  that  he 
contended  with  Homer  for  a  prize,  the  fabulous  account  of 
his  death,  and  certain  inconsistencies  in  the  extant  poems 
ascribed  to  him,  have  led  many  scholars  to  deny  that  he 
ever  existed,  and  to  assert  that  the  name  Hesiod  is 
merely  a  collective  designation  for  the  writers  of  didactic 
and  genealogical  epics.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  go  so  far 
as  this,  and  we  may  believe  that  there  was  a  real  Hesiod 
who  lived  at  Ascra  and  Naupactus,  and  who  became  so 
noted  that  the  poems  of  others  were  ascribed  to  him. 

Of  the  many  poems  once  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  only  three 
are  extant.     The  chief  of  these,  eight  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  lines  in  length,  is  called  Works  andDgyg, 

and  Da^s  "  an(^  *s  t^ie  ear^est  existing  didactic  poem — the 
earliest  poem,  that  is  to  say,  which  gives 
instruction  in  any  art  or  science.  This  poem  gives  rules 
and  advice  to  farmers  and  sailors  concerning  the  works 
which  they  have  to  do,  and  the  days  on  which  they  should 
do  them.  It  consists  of  three  parts :  first  a  series  of  ad- 
monitions addressed  to  the  poet's  brother,  Perses;  then 
the  rules  for  farmers  and  sailors ;  and  then  the  calendar  or 
Days.  These  may  once  have  been  distinct  poems,  but,  if 
that  is  the  case,  they  have  been  so  worked  over  that  each 
now  seems  inseparable  from  the  others.  Certainly  there 
have  been  additions  and  alterations  in  the  text,  but  on  the 
whole  this  poem  seems  to  have  come  down  to  us  in  a  good 
state  of  preservation.  After  the  death  of  their  father, 
Hesiod  and  his  younger  brother  Perses  divided  his  prop- 


52  GREEK  LITERATURE 

erty,  but  Perses  obtained  the  larger  share  by  bribing  the 
judges.  Not  content  with  his  ill-gotten  wealth,  he  threat- 
ened Hesiod  with  another  lawsuit.  This  is  the  occasion  of 
the  poem.  Hesiod  begins  with  an  invocation  of  the  Muses, 
and  a  few  lines  in  praise  of  Zeus,  then  explains  that  there 
are  two  kinds  of  strife — one  evil,  which  leads  to  war  and 
quarreling,  the  other  good,  leading  to  emulation  and  in- 
dustry. Then  he  warns  Perses  against  evil  strife  and  law- 
suits, and  charges  him  with  having  bribed  the  judges. 
The  hard  life  of  mankind  is  ascribed  to  the. anger  of  Zeus, 
because  Prometheus  stole  fire  and  gave  it  to  mortals,  where- 
upon Zeus  caused  Hephaestus  to  create  the  first  woman — 
Pandora,  the  "  All-gifted,"  because  each  of  the  gods  gave 
her  a  gift — through  whom  all  evil  came  to  man,  "  for  earth 
is  full  of  evils,  and  the  sea  is  full."  After  this  follows  a 
description  of  the  five  ages  of  man — the  age  of  gold,  of  sil- 
ver, of  brass,  the  heroic  age,  and  the  age  of  iron.  The 
heroic  age  seems  to  be  inserted  to  make  room  for  the 
Homeric  heroes,  for  it  interrupts  the  course  of  human  de- 
terioration by  the  insertion  after  the  violent  and  lawless 
brazen  age  of  a  race  better  than  its  predecessors,  and  much 
better  than  that  which  came  after.  The  fifth  age,  that  of 
iron,  in  which  the  poet  regrets  that  he  has  been  born, 
is  to  be  followed  by  a  sixth  still  worse.  There  shall  be  no 
justice  nor  right.  Keverence  and  retribution  shall  leave 
the  earth.  Here  follows  the  earliest  animal  story  in  Greek 
literature  : 

Thus  spoke  the  hawk  to  the  nightingale  of  the  spotted  throat, 
bearing  her  high  among  the  clouds,  clutched  in  his  talons ;  and  she, 
pierced  by  his  crooked  talons,  begged  for  pity :  but  he  sternly  ad- 
dressed her:  "Foolish  one,  why  do  you  cry?  One  much  more 
mighty  holds  you;  there  you  shall  go  where  I  lead  you,  though  you 
be  a  songster ;  and  if  I  wish  I  shall  make  you  my  meal,  or  let  you 
go.  But  the  foolish  one  who  wishes  to  strive  against  the  more  pow- 
erful loses  the  victory,  and  suffers  injury  in  addition  to  disgrace."  * 

1  Works  and  Days,  203  ff. 


DIDACTIC  AND  GENEALOGICAL  POEMS  53 

Perses  is  then  admonished  to  be  just,  and  the  poet  pro- 
ceeds to  further  advice,  for  "  he  is  best  of  all  who  knows 
all  things  himself,  but  he  again  is  excellent  who  follows 
the  advice  of  one  who  speaks  well."  So  Perses  is  advised 
to  work:  "Work,  foolish  Perses,  the  works  which  the  gods 
have  ordained  for  men."  Then  rules  are  given  for  the 
various  parts  of  the  husbandman's  activity.  A  man  should 
get  him  a  house,  a  wife,  an  ox,  and  fitting  household  goods, 
and  that  without  delay,  for  the  man  who  delays  fills  no 
granary.  The  plow  must  be  well  made.  At  the  cry  of 
the  crane  the  plowing  should  begin.  The  master  himself 
should  hold  the  plow,  while  a  slave  should  follow,  to  "  give 
trouble  to  the  birds  "  by  covering  up  the  seed.  And  so 
the  precepts  are  given  for  all  the  farmer's  year  to  the 
gathering  of  the  grapes  in  the  autumn.  Similar  precepts 
for  sailors  follow.  Then  comes  the  calendar  of  the  days 
which  are  for  any  reason  the  best  for  any  purpose.  "  Mark 
well  the  days  in  order  that  Zeus  sends,  and  tell  them  to 
your  slaves ;  that  the  thirtieth  day  of  the  month  is  the  best 
for  looking  over  the  work  and  allotting  the  rations."  "  On 
the  fourth  of  the  month  bring  home  your  bride."  "  One 
praises  one  day,  another  another,  but  few  know."  "  Some- 
times a  day  is  a  stepmother,  sometimes  a  mother,  therefore 
happy  and  blessed  he  who  knows  them  all  and  labors  un- 
blamed  by  the  immortals."  The  poem  contains  many 
gnomes  or  maxims,  such  as  are  current  among  country 
folk  :  "  A  bad  neighbor  is  as  great  an  evil  as  a  good  one  is 
a  blessing."  "  Get  good  measure  from  your  neighbor,  but 
pay  him  with  the  same  good  measure,  and  better,  if  you 
can,  that  afterward  when  you  need  it  you  may  find  a  good 
supply."  "  Make  no  base  gains ;  base  gains  are  the  same 
as  losses."  "  Take  your  fill  from  the  jar  when  it  is  newly 
opened,  and  at  the  end,  but  be  sparing  at  the  middle  of  it ; 
thrift  in  the  dregs  is  mean." 

The  second  poem  is  the  Theogony,  or  Descent  of  the 
Gods.     This  poem  of  one  thousajicTaiid  twenty-two  lines 


54  GREEK  LITERATURE 

was  universally  ascribed  to  Hesiod  by  the  ancients.     The 

text  is  corrupt  and  confused,  but  there  is  no  conclusive 

evidence  that  the  poem  is  not  by  the  author  of 

ne  eoff"  the  Works  and  Days,  though  it  is  evident  that 
some  lines  here  and  there  are  later  additions. 
The  introduction  tells  us  that  the  Muses  came  to  the  poet 
by  night  after  dancing  on  Mount  Helicon,  and  conferred 
upon  him  the  gift  of  song,  adding,  "  We  know  how  to  sing 
many  false  things  like  to  the  true,  but  we  know,  when  we 
wish,  how  to  sing  true  things."  These  words  are  supposed 
to  mark  the  distinction  between  the  Homeric  and  the 
Hesiodic  poetry,  the  latter  being  intended  not  so  much  to 
please  as  to  teach.  The  poet  then  sings  of  the  birth  and 
names  of  the  Muses,  and  invokes  their  aid  "in  this  poem 
suggested  by  themselves.  So  he  sings  of  the  first  parents, 
Chaos  and  Earth,  of  gloomy  Tartarus,  and  of  Eros  (Love), 
who  is  "  the  fairest  of  immortal  gods."  From  Chaos  sprang 
Erebus  (subterranean  darkness)  and  Night;  and  Night 
brought  forth  Day,  Heaven,  Mountains,  and  Sea.  The  off- 
spring of  Earth  and  Heaven  (Uranus)  are  Oceanus,  the 
Titans,  male  and  female,  the  Cyclopes,  and  Cronus,  besides 
the  hundred-handed  giants.  Cronus  and  Earth  overthrew 
and  mutilated  Uranus,  but  Cronus  was  himself,  in  spite  of 
the  aid  of  the  Titans,  overthrown  by  his  son  Zeus,  who  thus 
became  king  of  the  gods.  The  descent  of  the  Olympian 
gods  is  then  traced,  and  the  original  poem  may  have  ended 
here.  In  the  poem  as  we  have  it,  nearly  sixty  lines  (from 
line  965  to  the  end)  are  given  up  to  a  list  of  the  heroes 
born  to  men  by  goddesses.  Besides  the  bare  genealogy  the 
Theogony  contains  much  narrative,  as,  for  instance,  the  tale 
of  the  struggle  of  Zeus  and  his  helping  gods  against  Cronus 
and  the  Titans,  and  the  destruction  of  the  terrible  Typhosus, 
latest  offspring  of  Earth  and  Tartarus,  by  the  thunderbolt 
of  Zeus.  The  story  of  the  creation  of  Pandora  as  told  in 
the   Theogony  differs   somewhat   from  the  version  in  the 

Works  and  Bays.    In  the  narrative  and  descriptive  parts, 


DIDACTIC  AND  GENEALOGICAL  POEMS  55 

the  Theogony  shows  not  a  little  beauty  of  diction  and  poetic 
power,  but  its  chief  interest  to  us  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  earliest  known  attempt  to  give  a  systematic  account  of 
the  origin  of  the  world  and  the  gods  as  the  Greeks  con- 
ceived it.  They  regarded  their  gods  as  immortal,  but  did 
not  believe  that  they  had  existed  forever  without  begin- 
ning. All  things,  even  the  gods,  came  from  Chaos,  and 
even  Chaos  itself  did  not  exist  without  a  beginning.  The 
Theogony  was  regarded  by  the  Greeks  as  a  standard  author- 
ity on  the  matters  of  which  it  treats,  and  it  evidently 
contains  no  new  system  invented  by  the  poet,  but  is  an 
attempt  to  systematize  and  bring  into  agreement  the  tales 
and  legends,  often  perhaps  obscure  or  only  half  under- 
stood, contained  or  hinted  at  in  ancient  hymns  and  current 
folk-lore.  To  the  student  of  religions  it  is  of  the  greatest 
interest. 

The  third  poem  which  has  come  down  to  us  under 
Hesiod's  name,  the  Shield  of  Heracles,  is  almost  certainly 
not  by  the  author  of  the  Works  and  Days  or 
The  Shield  ^e  Theogony,  and  is  therefore  not  to  be  as- 
cribed to  Hesiod.  It  is,  however,  clearly  the 
work  of  a  poet,  or  poets,  writing  under,  the  influence  of 
Hesiod.  Its  date  is  not  to  be  fixed  accurately,  but  the 
poem  is  evidently  later  than  the  Works  and  Bays  or  the 
Theogony,  and  belongs  to  the  decline  of  Hesiodic  poetry. 
About  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  B.  c.  the  epic  poet 
Pisander  gives  Heracles  the  lion's  skin,  bow,  and  club.  In 
this  poem  he  is  armed  like  an  ordinary  warrior,  a  fact 
which  makes  it  not  improbable  that  the  poem  is  earlier 
than  Pisander's  time.  The  poem  consists  of  four  hundred 
and  eighty  lines  and  tells  the  story  of  a  combat  between 
Heracles,  son  of  Zeus,  and  Cycnus,  son  of  Ares,  the  god  of 
war.  Heracles,  accompanied  by  his  friend  and  squire  Iolaus, 
meets  the  robber  Cycnus  and  his  father  Ares  in  the  sacred 
precinct  of  Apollo,  at  Pagasse,  in  Thessaly.  Cycnus  in  his 
chariot  bars  the  way,  and  Heracles  is  compelled  to  fight 
5 


56  GREEK  LITERATURE 

for  a  passage0  Cycnus  is  killed,  and  Ares  escapes  to 
Olympus.  But  the  greater  part  of  the  poem  is  taken  up 
with  a  description  of  the  shield  of  Heracles,  obviously  in 
imitation  of  the  description  of  the  shield  of  Achilles  in  the 
eighteenth  book  of  the  Iliad,  to  which  it  is  far  inferior,  not 
only  in  diction  and  power  of  description,  but  even  more  in 
poetic  imagination.  The  first  fifty-six  lines  of  the  poem  in 
its  present  form  do  not  belong  with  the  rest,  but  are  taken 
from  another  poem  which  was  ascribed  to  Hesiod — the  Emm. 
The  Ernrn^  received  its  name  from  the  fact  that  each  di- 
vision began  with  the  words  ^  ofy,  "  or  such  as  she."  It  was 
an  enumeration  of  mortal  women  who  had 
been  loved  by  immortals,  and  had  become  the 
mothers  of  heroes;  and  the  author,  after  an  invocation  of 
the  Muses,  continues  with  the  words  "  Such  as  was  Alc- 
mene,"  and  again,  "  Or  such  as  was  "  another  of  the  famous 
women.  This  was  originally,  it  seems,  an  independent 
poem,  but  it  was  regarded  as  the  fourth  book  of  a  Cata- 
The  Cata-  logue  of  Women,  in  four  (or  perhaps  five)  books, 
logue  of  which  told  of  famous  women  of  Dorian  and 

Women.  iEolian  race.     The  prominent  position  given 

to  women  in  these  poems  reminds  us  that  Hesiod  was  said 
to  have  lived  among  the  Dorian  Locrians,  among  whom 
women  were  more  respected  than  in  most  other  parts  of 
Greece,  and  that  Hesiodic  poetry  was  cultivated  in  Locris. 
Whether  the  title  The  Great  Emm  is  a  second  title  of  the 
Catalogue  of  Women,  or  of  the  Emm,  or  whether  it  refers  to 
a  third  poem  of  similar  character,  is  not  certain.  There  is 
little  evidence  by  which  to  fix  the  date  of  these  poems,  but 
what  there  is  points  to  the  seventh  century  b.  c.  Their 
purpose,  like  that  of  the  Theogony,  is  evidently  to  collect 
the  old  legends  into  a  sort  of  sacred  history  rather  than  to 
elaborate  them  into  beautiful  poems ;  to  teach  rather  than 
to  please,  though  the  poems  probably  contained  beautiful 
passages,  and  may  have  had  a  severe  and  characteristic 
beauty  of  their  own,  as  the  Theogony  has. 


DIDACTIC  AND  GENEALOGICAL  POEMS  57 

Other  poems  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  either  because  they 

were  didactic  or  genealogical,  or  because  they  resembled 

his  poems  in  style,  are  the  ^Egimius,  telling  of 

odkpo^ms"  the  fiSht  of  KinS  ^gimius  ^ith  the  Lapithaa; 
the  Teachings  of  Cheiron,  which  told  of  the 
wise  centaur's  precepts ;  the  Marriage  of  Ceyx,  telling  of  the 
marriage  of  King  Ceyx  at  Trachis,  at  which  Heracles  was 
present ;  the  Melampodia,  relating  to  the  seer  and  prophet 
Melampus ;  a  poem  on  'Prophecy  by  the  Flight  of  Birds ;  and 
several  others.  All  of  these  are  now  lost,  and  probably 
none  of  them  was  really  by  Hesiod. 

With  the  poems  which  we  have  mentioned  the  epic 
period  of  Greek  poetry  closes.  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
The  end  of  several  epic  poets  known  by  name,  such  as 
the  epic  Asius,   Pisander,    Panyasis,   Antimachus,  and 

period.  Clioerilus,  who  wroteat  various  times  from  the 

seventh  to  the  fourth  century  b.  C.  Their  works  are  lost, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  fragments,  and  they  never  be- 
longed to  the  spontaneous  development  of  Greek  epic 
poetry,  but  were  literary  works,  composed  chiefly  for  a  read- 
ing public,  not  natural  growths  like  the  genuine  Homeric 
and  Hesiodic  poems.  Undoubtedly  some  of  the  lost  poems 
which  were  once  ascribed  to  Homer  and  Hesiod  belong  to 
this  later  literary  period,  in  which  the  poets  imitated  the 
great  epics  of  earlier  times.  There  was  also  epic  poetry  of 
the  Alexandrian  and  even  of  the  Eoman  period,  but  this 
was  of  a  learned  and  artificial  sort.  The  epic  period  of 
Greek  literature  is  therefore  properly  said  to  end  not  long 
after  700  B.  c. 


CHAPTEK  VI 

LYRIC  POETRY-ELEGIAC  POETRY 

Character  and  development  of  lyric  poetry — Elegiac  and  iambic 
verse — CaUinnA  about  700  b.  c. — Archilochus,  about  700  b.  c. — Tyr- 
taeus,  wrote  between  680  and  GOO  B.C. — Mimnermus,  about  630  B.C. 
-— gplon,  about  640-558  b.  c. — Theognis,  about  550  b.  c. — PhocyJideSj 
about  550  b.  c. — Xenophanes,  about  560  b.  c. — Other  elegiac  poets, 
Chilo,  Pittacus,  Periandera  Bias,  Demodocus  (about  550  B.C.),  Asius, 
Pigres. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  in  the  history  of  Greek  litera- 
ture that  each  form  of  expression  reached  its  'height  and 
Character  of  hegan  to  decline  before  the  next  attained  any- 
epic  and  lyric  marked  artistic  development.  So  it  is  not  until 
poetry.  epjc  p0etry  begins  to  sink  into  imitation  of 

earlier  works  that  lyric  verse  becomes  prominent  (see  page 
7).  Lyric  poetry  differs  from  epic  poetry  both  in  its  con- 
tents and  in  its  form.  Epic  poetry  narrates.  It  tells  a 
story,  as  is  the  case  with  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  or  at 
any  rate  it  tells  or  describes  what  are  supposed  to  be  facts 
or  real  objects.  Lyric  poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  is  con- 
cerned not  with  facts,  but  with  the  feelings  of  the  author ; 
and  whereas  the  author  of  epic  poetry  is  kept  out  of  sight 
and  out  of  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer,  the  author  of 
lyric  verse  is  brought  prominently  forward.  In  the  period 
to  which  the  Homeric  poems  belong  the  government  of 
the  Greek  communities  was  in  the  hands  of  kings  or  royal 
families,  and  the  men  of  the  people  were  hardly  regarded 
as  individuals,  but  rather  each  one  merely  as  a  part  of  the 
58 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        59 

crowd.  They  had  not  begun  to  assert  their  own  individ- 
uality, and  did  not  demand  nor  care  for  poetry  which  ex- 
pressed individual  thought  and  feeling ;  nor  had  the  poets 
begun  to  feel  the  need  of  composing  such  poetry.  But  as 
time  went  on  the  circumstances  of  life  changed.  There 
_  „        was  more  trade  and  more  travel.     The  people 

Reasons  tor  r     r 

the  develop-  began  to  think  more  for  themselves,  and  at  the 
ment  of  lyric  same  time  the  government  of  the  communities 
poetry.  changed  from  monarchy  to  oligarchy,  the  rule 

of  a  small  number  of  nobles,  and  there  was  more  political 
unrest  than  there  had  been.  This  is  evident  in  the  Works 
and  Days,  with  its  reproach  of  bribed  judges  and  unjust 
rulers.  In  the  Hesiodic  poetry  there  is  already  more  reflec- 
tion and  more  of  a  personal  element  than  in  the  Homeric 
epics ;  but  as  yet  the  personal  element  is  not  the  most  im- 
portant. As  the  people  advanced  in  number,  in  political 
power,  and  in  the  sense  of  their  own  individual  rights  and 
feelings,  they  brought  about  the  establishment  of  popular 
governments  or  democracies,  but  not  without  severe  strug- 
gles with  the  nobles.  Not  that  all  the  governments  became 
democratic;  far  from  it,  but  the  general  tendency  was 
toward  freedom  of  government  and  personal  liberty  of 
thought  and  action.  In  such  a  condition  of  things  it  is 
natural  that  poetry  adapted  to  the  expression  of  the 
author's  own  feelings  and  thoughts  began  to  be  culti- 
vated. 

Lyric  poetry  naturally  -differs  from  epic  poetry  in  form, 
because  it  is  originally  intended  to  be  sung  to  the  accom- 
paniment  of  the  lyre  (or  flute),  while  epic  po- 
ence  in  form  e^ry  is  to  De  recited,  or,  at  most,  chanted,  and 
between  epic  also  because  lyric  poetry,  expressing  as  it  does 
and  lyric  ^he  feelings  and  emotions  of  the  author,  de- 
mands a  kind  of  verse  different  from  that 
required  for  sustained  narrative.  The  Greek  epic  poets 
used  the  dactylic  hexameter  verse,  which  has  been  imitated 
by  several  poets  in  English.     The  first  lines  of  Longfel- 


60  GREEK  LITERATURE 

low's  Evangeline  will  give  an  idea  of  the  cadence  of  this 
metre : 

112  1  3  I  4  I  5  I  6 

This  is  the  J  forest  pri|meval.     The]  murmuring!  pines  and  the  |  hemlocks 

1  I  2  I  3  I  *4  I  5  |  6 

Bearded  with | moss,  and  in | garments! green,  indis|tinct  in  the | twilight, 

1  |  2  I  3  I       4       I  5  16 

Stand  like  I  Druids  of  |  old,  with  |  voices  |  sad  and  pa|thetic, 

1  I         2         I  3  I  4  I  5  16 

Stand  like  I  harpers  |  hoar,  with  |  beards  that  |  rest  on  their  |  bosoms. 

The  earliest  Greek  lyric  poets  of  whom  we  know  anything 
adopted  one  of  two  kinds  of  verse,  the  elegiac  and  the 
iambic.  The  origin  of  the  word  "elegy"  is  obscure.  It 
is  probably  not  Greek  at  all,  and  may  have  denoted  at  first 
a  dirge  or  mournful  song  accompanied  by  the  flute ;  but  as 
we  find  the  word  used  it  means  a  particular  metre  devel- 
oped from  the  dactylic  hexameter.     A  regular 

Elegiac  hexameter  is  followed  by  a  so-called  pentame- 

verse.  i-t.-i  -i    ■ 

ter,   making    an    elegiac   distich    or    couplet. 

The  pentameter  is  made  by  cutting  off  the  last  half  of  the 

third  and  sixth  feet  of  the  hexameter.     So  if  we  remove 

the  word  with  from  the  fourth  line  of  Evangeline  and  put 

breasts  in  place  of  bosoms,  the  third  and  fourth  lines  make 

an  elegiac  distich : 

1  I  2  I  3  I      4      j  5  16 

Stand  like  I  Druids  of  |  old,  with  |  voices  |  sad  and  pa|thetic, 

1  I        2        |      3      I  4  I  5  16 

Stand  like  |  harpers  I  hoar;  |  beards  that  |  rest  on  their]  breasts. 

The  second  line  is  called  a  penta*meter  because  it  contains 
the  equivalent  of  five  feet — two  and  a  half  feet  twice  over. 
Coleridge  thus  describes  and  illustrates  the  elegiac  distich  : 

"In  the  hexameter  rises  the  fountain's  silvery  column  ; 
In  the  pentameter  aye  falling  in  melody  back."  x 

1  Coleridge  describes  various  metrical  feet  used  by  the  ancients  as 
follows : 


Trochee  |  trips  from  |  long  to  |  short ; 
From  long  to  long  in  solemn  sort 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        61 

It  is  evident  that  the  elegiac  verse  is  derived  from  the 
hexameter,  and  equally  evident  that  the  iambic  verse  is 
not.  The  poets  who  used  the  iambic  metres  went  directly 
to  the  popular  songs  and  used  the  rhythms  they  found 
there  for  their  poems.  The  word  iambus  (^  — )  is  of  uncer- 
tain derivation,  but  is  probably  connected  with  the  verb 
tctTTTO) — "  dart  or  shoot " — for  the  iambic  metre 
was  used  for  the  mocking,  taunting  verses 
flung  back  and  forth  by  those  who  took  part  in  the  proces- 
sions in  honor  of  Demeter.  In  the  Homeric  Hymn  to 
Demeter,  the  daughter  of  Celeus,  who  first  brings  a  smile 
to  the  face  of  the  goddess,  is  called  Iambe,  and  the  word 
iambus  was  said  to  be  derived  from  her  name.  In  reality, 
her  name  was  doubtless  invented  as  an  explanation  of  the 
word.  The  commonest  form  of  iambic  metre  is  the  trim- 
eter, composed  of  three  dipodies,  each  dipody  consisting 
of  two  iambic  feet.  This  metre  is  not  very  common  in 
English,  but  was  much  used  by  the  Greeks,  being  the  regu- 
lar metre  for  the  dialogue  in  tragedy  and  comedy.     The 


Slow  Spon|dee  stalks  ;  |  strong  foot !  Jyet  ill  able 
Ever  to |  come  up  with  |  Dactyl  trisyllable. 
lam  I  bics  march  |  from  short  |  to  long ; — 


v--»       v^       —  v«/         v-» 


With  a  leap | and  a  bound | the  swift  An|apaests  throng; 
One  syllable  long,  with  one  short  at  each  side, 

Amphibrachys  hastes  with  |  a  stately  |  stride  ; — 

First  and  last  |  being  long,  |  middle  short,  |  Amphima|cer 

Strikes  his  thun[dering  hoofs  (like  a  proud  [ high-bred  pajcer. 

Here  each  line  in  which  the  syllables  are  marked  gives  the  cadence 
of  the  foot  mentioned  in  it. 


62  GREEK  LITERATURE 

last  line  in  the  stanza  of  Byron's  Childe  Harold  is  an  Eng- 
lish iambic  trimeter,  as : 


A  world  I  is  at  |  our  feet  ||  as  frag|ile  as  |  our  clay. 

This  is  one  foot  (^  _)  longer  than  the  line  in  English 
blank  verse. 

Although  the  earliest  iambic  verses  we  know  were  used 
to  express  satire,  the  metre  was  not  limited  to  that  use,  but 
was  employed  for  the  expression  of  all  sorts  of  personal 
feeling  and  of  such  thoughts  as  demanded  more  rapid  and 
pointed  expression  than  was  furnished  by  the  elegiac  verse. 
Elegiac  and  iambic  verse  were  composed  to  be  sung  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  flute  and  the  lyre,  but  the  music 
was  less  important  than  in  some  other  kinds  of  verse. 
These  two  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  the  least  lyric  of 
all  the  forms  of  lyric  poetry.  They  were,  however,  at  first 
sung  at  banquets  and  elsewhere — not  recited,  as  epic  po- 
etry was  at  that  time.1  Of  the  two,  elegiac  poetry  was  the 
more  quiet  and  restrained,  iambic  poetry  more  sharp  and 
biting  when  satirical,  and  more  passionate  and  animated 
at  other  times.  Elegiac  verse  was  employed  in  lamenta- 
tions, in  giving  political  and  personal  advice  or  precepts, 
and,  in  short,  for  the  expression  of  the  poet's  thoughts  and 
feelings  on  all  matters.  In  Alexandrian  times,  the  elegiac 
verse  was  much  used  in  love  poetry,  and  in  this  as  in  many 
other  respects  the  Roman  poets  imitated  the  Alexandrians. 
Iambic  verse  was  also  used  for  the  expression  of  the  various 
thoughts  and  emotions,  but  was  especially  adapted  to  ex- 
press those  that  called  for  lively  or  rapid  utterance. 

In  their  origin  both  elegiac  and  iambic  verse  were  Ionic, 
and  both  retained  the  Ionic  dialect  throughout  the  period 
of  their  popularity.     But  elegiac  verse  was  composed  in 

1  Originally  epic  poetry  had  been  sung  to  the  accompaniment  of 
the  lyre,  but  by  the  time  it  reached  its  highest  development  the  music 
was  almost,  if  not  entirely,  given  up. 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY  63 

various  parts  of  the  Greek  world,  and  its  dialect  was  affected 
by  that  of  the  people  among  whom  the  different  poets 
Dialect  of  lived.  So  Tyrtaeus,  at  Sparta,  composed  his 
elegiac  and  verses  in  Ionic  Greek,  but  with  some  Doric 
iambic  verse.  forms>  ana  Solon,  at  Athens,  used  a  dialect 
which  differed  little  from  the  spoken  language  of  Attica. 
The  Ionic  dialect  of  this  period  was  at  any  rate  different 
from  the  Ionic  of  the  Homeric  poems,  and  was  not  very 
different  from  the  Attic  Greek  of  the  time.  Iambic  verse 
was  not  so  widely  diffused  as  elegiac  verse,  and  its  dialect 
remained  for  the  most  part  purely  Ionic. 

The  earliest  known  elegiac  poet  is  Callinus.  He  was  an 
Ephesian  by  birth,  and  appears  to  have  lived  not  far  from 
700  B.  c.  The  few  extant  fragments  of  his 
poems  refer  to  the  contests  of  his  native  city 
with  the  neighboring  Magnesia  and  to  the  inroads  of  the 
Cimmerians.  These  references  serve  to  fix  his  date  at  about 
700  b.  c,  rather  later  than  earlier.  The  most  important 
fragment,  preserved  by  Stobaeus  in  his  Florilegium,  a  collec- 
tion of  various  selections  compiled  in  the  sixth  century 
after  Christ,  is  an  exhortation  to  the  young  men  to  fight  for 
their  country  :  "  How  long  will  you  lie  quiet?  When  will 
you  have  a  brave  spirit,  0  youths  ?  Have  you  no  shame 
before  our  neighbors,  resting  so  carelessly?  You  think 
you  sit  in  peace,  but  war  holds  all  the  land."  Then  a  line 
is  lacking,  perhaps  several  lines,  and  the  poem  goes  on : 

And  let  one  hurl  his  javelin  for  the  last  time  in  death.  For  it 
is  honorable  and  glorious  for  a  man  to  fight  for  his  country  and  his 
children  and  his  loving  wife  against  the  foe ;  but  death  shall  come 
whene'er  the  Fates  have  spun  one's  thread  of  life,  so  let  him  go 
straight  on  with  spear  advanced  and  bearing  'neath  his  shield  a  val- 
iant heart,  in  the  first  rush  of  war.  For  no  wise  is  it  fated  for  a 
man  to  escape  death,  not  even  though  he  be  by  race  sprung  from  the 
immortals.  Though  he  escape  full  oft  from  battle  and  the  clash  of 
javelins,  yet  in  his  house  the  fate  of  death  comes  on  him.  But  he  is 
neither  loved  nor  longed  for  by  the  folk ;  the  other  great  and  small 


64  GREEK  LITERATURE 

alike  lament  if  evil  come  to  him,  for  all  the  folk  yearns  when  a 
brave  man  dies ;  and  while  he  lives,  he  lives  almost  a  god,  for  as  a 
tower  of  strength  they  look  upon  him,  since  he  does  single-handed 
the  deeds  of  many  men. 

This  fragment  gives  some  idea  of  the  spirit  of  Calli- 
nus's  verse.  Unfortunately,  it  is  the  only  fragment  of  any 
importance  remaining. 

About  the  same  time  as  Callinus,  Archilochus  also  com- 
posed elegiac  verses.  But  his  name  is  so  closely  associ- 
ated with  iambic  verse  that  it  will  be  best  to 
speak  of  him  after  we  have  mentioned  the 
other  elegiac  poets.  In  general,  it  is  impossible  to  make 
perfectly  accurate  classifications  of  the  poets,  because  most 
of  them  wrote  verses  of  various  kinds.  It  will  therefore 
be  most  convenient  to  speak  of  each  poet  in  the  class  to 
which  his  most  important  works  would  lead  us  to  as- 
sign him. 

Tyrtaeus  wrote  elegiac  war-songs  at  Sparta  during  the 
second  Messenian  War  (between  630  and  600  B.  a).  The 
story  goes  that  the  Spartans  were  hard  pressed 
in  the  war,  and  sent  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi 
for  advice.  The  oracle  told  them  to  ask  the  Athenians  for 
a  leader.  But  the  Athenians  had  no  intention  of  aiding 
the  Spartans,  so  they  gave  them  a  lame  schoolmaster  to 
be  their  general.  The  schoolmaster,  however,  stirred  the 
courage  of  the  troops  by  his  martial  songs  so  that  the 
enemy  could  not  withstand  their  charge,  and  thus  the 
Spartans  were  victorious.  This  tale  is  doubtless  an  inven- 
tion of  the  Athenians,  at  least  in  part,  originating  perhaps 
in  a  joke  of  some  comic  poet,  but  it  is  certain  that  the 
Spartans  did  call  in  foreign  poets,  so  that  there  is  no  in- 
herent improbability  in  the  tradition  that  Tyrtaeus  was 
born  at  Aphidnae,  in  Attica.  On  the  other  hand,  he  speaks 
in  his  poems  as  a  Spartan,  and  there  was  an  Aphidna  in 
Laconia.  The  question  of  his  birth  must  therefore  be  left 
undecided.      His  poems,  of  which  several  fragments   are 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        65 

extant,  consist  of  the  Eunomia,  in  elegiac  verse,  designed 
to  quiet  dissension  and  internal  strife ;  the  Hypothekai,  or 
Precepts,  elegiac  poems  of  warlike  character,  and  Emba- 
teria,  songs  in  anapaestic  measure,  to  be  sung  in  charging 
the  enemy.  One  fragment  of  the  Eunomia  is 
as  follows  :  "  For  Cronus's  son  himself,  husband 
of  Hera  of  the  beautiful  crown,  Zeus  gave  this  city  to  the 
sons  of  Heracles,  with  whom  we  left  the  windy  Erineum 
and  came  to  the  broad  isle  of  Pelops."    Another  is  this : 

Phoebus  they  heard  and  home  from  Pytho  brought  the  oracles  of 
the  god  and  words  that  bring  fulfilment;  that  rulers  of  the  council 
be  god- honored  kings,  who  care  for  the  lovely  city  of  Sparta,  and 
old  men  ancient  of  days ;  and  then  the  common  men,  answering  by 
proper  laws,  should  utter  noble  words  and  do  all  just  deeds,  and 
plot  no  ill  against  this  city ;  but  victory  and  strength  should  follow 
the  people's  mass;  for  thus  did  Phoebus  prophesy  to  the  city  of 
these  things. 

This  shows  the  divine  origin  of  the  Spartan  constitu- 
tion, and  is  a  fitting  introduction  to  a  poem  urging  the 
people  to  obey  the  laws.  Another  fragment  tells  how  the 
grandfathers  of  those  addressed  fought  against  the  Messen- 
ians  for  nineteen  years. 

A  fragment  of  the  Hypothekai  begins  thus  :  "  For  it  is 
beautiful  to  die  falling  among  the  foremost  fighters  as  a 
brave  man  fighting  for  his  native  land.  But 
th  \  •yP°"  ^°  leave  one's  city  and  fertile  fields  and  be  a 
beggar  is  most  grievous  of  all  things,  wander- 
ing with  one's  dear  mother  and  aged  father  and  little  chil- 
dren and  beloved  wife."  Therefore,  the  poet  goes  on  to 
say,  every  one  should  fight  bravely  for  his  country :  "  0 
youths,  fight  standing  side  by  side,  and  make  no  beginning 
of  shameful  flight  or  fear,  but  make  your  spirit  great  and 
valiant  in  your  breast,  and  have  no  love  of  life  when  fight- 
ing with  men."  He  urges  the  young  men  not  to  desert 
their  elders  in  battle,  for  death  in  battle  is  not  beautiful  in 
age,  "  but  to  the  young  all  things  are  becoming ;  so  long  as 


66  GREEK  LITERATURE 

one  has  the  beauteous  bloom  of  lovely  youth  he  is  admired 
by  men  who  see  him,  loved  by  women,  while  he  lives,  and 
beautiful  when  fallen  in  the  foremost  ranks."  Another 
fragment  encourages  the  Spartans  to  fight  because  they 
are  of  the  race  of  Heracles,  and  gives  the  further  argument 
that  those  who  flee  are  more  likely  to  be  slain  than  those 
who  fight  and  conquer.  It  also  contains  special  precepts 
for  the  heavy-armed  and  light-armed  men.  Still  another 
fragment  expresses  contempt  for  the  coward  and  admira- 
tion for  the  brave  man. 

There   are  but  two  short  fragments  of  the   charging 
songs,  both  of  which  are  here  translated  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible in  the  metre  of  the  original.     One  con- 
sists of  one  line :  "  To  the  front,  armed  sons 
of  Sparta,  to  the  exercise  of  Ares."     The  other  is  a  little 
longer : 

To  the  front,  O  sons  of  Sparta 

Rich  in  men,  of  freeborn  fathers, 

With  your  left  hand  press  your  shield  forth, 

Hurl  your  lance  with  daring  spirit, 

Not  sparing  your  life  in  battle ; 

For  'tis  not  the  custom  at  Sparta. 

Tyrtaeus  employed  elegiac  verse  for  songs  of  political 
and  warlike  character.  Very  different  was  the  poetry  of 
Mimnermus.  This  poet,  who  is  also  mentioned 
as  a  flute-player,  was  born  and  lived  at  Col- 
ophon, an  Ionic  city  of  Asia  Minor.  The  date  assigned  to 
him  is  about  630  B.  c.  His  father's  name  was  probably 
Ligyastes,  but  nothing  is  known  of  his  life.  We  are  told 
that  he  was  in  love  with  a  girl  named  Nanno,  a  flute-player, 
and  that  he  dedicated  a  poem  or  a  collection  of  poems  to 
her ;  but  the  authority  for  this  story,  Hermesianax,  is  not 
very  trustworthy,  and  none  of  the  fragments  of  the  poems 
of  Mimnermus  mentions  Nanno's  name.  The  poems  sing 
of  love  in  general,  of  pleasure  and  of  youth,  rather  than  of 
love  for  any  particular  person.     Mimnermus  also  sang  of 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        67 

the  war  between  Smyrna  and  King  Gyges  of  Lydia,  but  it 
is  not  to  such  poetry  that  he  owed  his  reputation.  He  was 
regarded  as  the  father  of  elegiac  love  poetry,  and  his  verses 
breathe  an  air  of  gentle,  pleasure-loving  melancholy.  "  What 
is  life,  and  what  pleasure  is  there  without  golden  Aphro- 
dite ?  May  I  die,  when  such  things  no  more  delight  me," 
he  sings,  and  later  in  the  same  fragment : 

Ah !  fair  and  lovely  bloom  the  flowers  of  youth ; 

On  men  and  maids  they  beautifully  smile : 
But  soon  comes  doleful  eld,  who,  void  of  ruth, 

Indifferently  affects  the  fair  and  vile ; 
Then  cares  wear  out  the  heart :  old  eyes  forlorn 

Scarce  reck  the  very  sunshine  to  behold — 
Unloved  by  youths,  of  every  maid  the  scorn — 

So  hard  a  lot  God  lays  upon  the  old. 1 

Again  he  says  that 

we  are  like  the  leaves  that  grow  in  the  time  of  flowery  spring, 
when  they  flourish  in  the  beams  of  the  sun ;  like  them  we  joy  for  a 
brief  space  in  the  flowers  of  youth,  knowing  by  the  gods'  grace 
neither  good  nor  evil.  But  the  black  Fates  stand  beside  us,  one 
with  the  doom  of  hateful  age,  the  other  bearing  that  of  death ;  and 
quickly  passes  the  fruit  of  youth,  like  the  sun  that  spreads  his  beams 
upon  the  earth.  But  when  the  end  of  this  season  is  passed  then 
death  at  once  is  better  than  life. 

And  again,  "  May  I  without  disease  and  hateful  pains, 
at  sixty  years  meet  with  the  fate  of  death." 

These  are  not  the  utterances  of  a  great  man,  and  betray 
a  somewhat  self-indulgent,  effeminate  character,  yet  they 
have  undeniable  beauty,  and  have  been  more  or  less  directly 
imitated  by  poets  of  many  lands  and  many  ages. 

Solon  is  the  first  of  the  genuine  Attic  poets.     Even  if  it 

is  true  that  Tyrtaeus  was  an  Athenian  by  birth,  his  poetry 

was  at  any  rate  Spartan.     But  with  Solon  the 

Athenian  spirit  appears  in  literature  with  all 

its   essential  characteristics :    complete  harmony  of  body 

1  Translated  by  John  Addington  Symonds. 


68  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  mind,  lively  imagination,  steady  reason,  and  strong 
will,  correct  and  delicate  appreciation  of  life  and  its  pleas- 
ures, endurance  in  troubles,  victorious  courage  in  trials, 
breadth  and  suppleness  of  thought — which  is  at  once  prac- 
tical and  speculative — and  with  all  this  a  natural  modera- 
tion, easy  and  well-balanced,  bold  at  once  and  prudent,  a 
spirit  which  leads  men  to  think  well  and  speak  well,  with- 
out effort  and  without  weakness.  All  the  qualities  of  the 
different  divisions  of  the  Greek  race  unite  and  combine  in 
the  Attic  genius. 

Solon  was  an  Athenian  of  an  ancient  family,  descended 
from  Codrus,  the  king  who  was  said  to  have  lost  his  life  to 
save  his  country.  Solon,  the  son  of  Execes- 
tides,  was  born  about  640  B.  c.  In  spite  of  his 
noble  birth  he  was  poor,  and  at  an  early  age  undertook  to 
make  his  fortune  in  commerce.  He  went  to  sea,  traveled, 
and  returned  a  wealthy  man,  or  at  least  not  poor.  At  this 
time  he  may  have  been  about  thirty  years  old.  He  found 
his  country  in  great  trouble.  The  common  people  were 
ground  down  by  a  harsh  aristocracy,  there  was  much 
poverty,  discontent,  and  civil  strife.  The  military  power 
of  the  state  was  sunk  so  low  that  the  neighboring  island  of 
Salamis  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Megarians,  and  we 
are  even  told  that  a  law  had  been  passed  forbidding  any  one 
to  propose  its  reconquest,  so  profound  was  the  feeling  of 
discouragement.  In  this  state  of  things  Solon  showed  his 
power.  He  roused  the  patriotism  and  confidence  of  the 
citizens  by  his  verses,  reconquered  Salamis,  and  called  in 
the  Cretan  Epimenides,  a  holy  man  and  a  prophet,  who 
reconciled  the  people  with  the  gods  by  appropriate 
ceremonies.  Athens  was  then  able  to  propitiate  the  gods 
still  further  by  taking  part  in  the  Sacred  War.  The  wis- 
dom and  honesty  of  Solon  were  joined  to  great  kindness  anci 
affability,  and  his  influence  and  popularity  increased  until, 
in  594  B.  c,  he  was  made  archon  and  entrusted  with  the 
highest  power  in  the  state,     He  then  undertook  reforms 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        69 

for  the  relief  of  the  poor  from  the  burden  of  debt,  which 
he  accomplished  so  wisely  that  rich  and  poor  alike  accepted 
them.  The  story  goes  that  he  caused  the  Athenians  to 
agree  to  keep  his  laws  for  ten  years  without  change,  and 
left  the  city  to  travel  in  foreign  lands,  visiting  Cyprus, 
Asia,  and  Egypt.  But  the  tales  of  his  conversations  with 
King  Croesus  of  Lydia  and  the  Egyptian  priests  are  prob- 
ably without  foundation.  Solon  lived  to  see  his  laws  in 
part  set  aside  by  the  usurpation  of  Pisistratus,  but  he  was 
ever  after  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  Athenian  de- 
mocracy. He  died  probably  about  558  b.  c,  at  the  age  of 
over  eighty  years. 

The  poems  of  Solon  reflect  the  chief  events  of  his  life. 

They  consist  of  elegies,  iambics,  and  songs,  but  the  most 

important  and  longest   fragments  are  of  the 

elegies.     There  are  in  all  about  two  hundred 
poems.  &  .  ,  . 

and   seventy  lines  of  his  poems   extant.     In 

urging   the    Athenians    to   reconquer    Salamis    he    says: 

"  Would  that  I  were  a  Pholegandrian  or  a  Sicinetan  instead 

of  an  Athenian,  by  change  of  country ;  for  straightway  this 

speech  may  now  go  among  men :  '  This  is  an  Attic  man, 

one  of  the  Salamis  deserters.' "    Here  he  tries  to  rouse  the 

pride  of  his  countrymen  by  wishing  he  were  a  citizen  of  an 

insignificant  island.     Another  fragment   reads :   "  Let   us 

go  to  lovely  Salamis  to  fight  for  the  island  and  shake  off 

our  hard  disgrace."     In    his   Advice  or  Precepts    to   the 

Athenians  he  says : 

By  the  fate  of  Zeus  and  the  will  of  the  immortal  gods  our  city 
shall  never  be  destroyed,  such  a  great-souled  guardian,  Pallas 
Athene,  daughter  of  a  mighty  father,  holds  her  hands  over  us ;  but 
the  citizens  themselves  by  their  own  folly  wish  to  destroy  the  great 
city,  yielding  to  love  of  money,  and  unjust  is  the  spirit  of  the  people's 
leaders,  who  are  destined  to  suffer  many  woes  for  their  insolence. 

In  speaking  of  his  reforms  he  says : 

To  the  people  I  gave  so  much  power  as  suffices,  neither  taking 
from  their  honor  nor  giving  too  much ;  and  those  who  had  power 


70  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  were  splendid  in  wealth,  for  these  also  I  planned  that  they 
should  have  no  disgrace ;  but  I  stood  throwing  a  strong  shield  about 
both,  and  suffered  neither  to  conquer  unjustly. 

Again  he  says,  this  time  in  iambic  verse : 

This  testimony  in  the  court  of  time  the  greatest  mother  of  the 

Olympic  gods  might  bear,  the   most   excellent   dark   earth,  from 

whom  once  I  removed  the  boundary  stones  set  up  in  many  places; 

and  she  was  once  enslaved  but  now  is  free;  and  many 

to  their  god-founded  native  land  of  Athens  I  restored 
poems. 

who  had  been  sold,  one  unjustly,  another  justly,  and 

some  through  stress  of  need  speaking  strange  words,  no  longer 
uttering  Attic  speech,  as  wanderers  in  many  places,  and  others  here 
at  home  who  had  the  vile  spirit  of  slavery,  trembling  at  their  mas- 
ters, I  freed.  These  things  by  might,  joining  force  and  justice,  I 
did  and  finished  as  I  promised.  And  laws  I  made  alike  for  base 
and  noble,  fitting  right  justice  to  each  man.  But  another,  a  man 
of  evil  mind  and  fond  of  gain,  taking  the  goad  as  I  did,  would  not 
have  restrained  the  folk,  and  would  not  have  ceased,  until  by  stir- 
ring it  up  he  had  taken  out  the  rich  milk. 

Here  the  last  words  seem  to  mean  that  another  man 
would  have  disturbed  the  people  until  he  himself  possessed 
the  rule  in  the  state. 

A  long  fragment  (seventy-six  lines)  of  his  Suggestions 
to  Himself  begins : 

Glorious  children  of  Memory  and  of  Olympian  Zeus,  Pierian 

Muses,  hear  me  as  I  pray.     Grant  me  from  the  blessed  gods  wealth, 

and  from  all  men  always  to  have  good  reputation; 

The  Sug-g^s-      tjmg  to  ke  sweefc  t0  my  frien(iS)  and  bitter  to  my  ene- 

,-  mies,  to  the  first  an  object  of  reverence,  to  the  second 

terrible  to  behold.  And  wealth  I  long  to  have ;  but  I 
do  not  wish  to  possess  it  unjustly;  certainly  justice  comes  afterward. 
Now  the  wealth  which  the  gods  give  is  firmly  established  for  a  man 
from  the  lowest  foundation  to  the  top ;  but  what  men  pursue  through 
insolence,  comes  not  in  fair  order,  but  yielding  to  unjust  bonds  fol- 
lows unwillingly ;  and  quickly  ruin  is  mixed  with  it.  The  begin- 
ning is  as  from  a  little  fire — small  at  first,  but  grievous  at  last ;  for 
the  works  of  insolence  abide  not  long  for  mortals.     But  Zeus  over- 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        71 

sees  the  end  of  all  things,  and  suddenly,  as  a  spring  wind  quickly 
scatters  the  clouds,  a  wind  which,  stirring  the  bottom  of  the  barren 
sea,  laying  waste  the  fair  fields  on  the  fertile  land,  reaches  high 
heaven,  the  seat  of  the  gods,  and  makes  the  clear  sky  visible  again, 
and  the  sun's  might  shines  forth  along  the  fertile  earth,  and  there  is 
nothing  left  of  clouds  to  see,  such  is  the  vengeance  of  Zeus ;  but 
not  in  each  case,  like  to  a  mortal  man,  is  he  swift  to  wrath ;  but  any 
man  who  has  a  wicked  heart  never  escapes  his  notice  for  all  time, 
but  certainly  is  evident  at  last. 

There  are,  even  among  the  extant  fragments,  many 
gnomic  lines  or  maxims^  as,  for  instance,  "For  satiety 
begets  insolence,  when  much  wealth  follows/'  or  "  By  the 
winds  the  sea  is  troubled ;  but  if  one  stir  it  not  it  is  the 
gentlest  of  all  things,"  or  "  The  mind  of  the  immortals  is 
utterly  inscrutable  to  men."  One  of  the  lines  attributed 
to  his  old  age  is  this :  "  I  grow  old  always  learning  many 
things."  The  poetry  of  Solon  is  always  serene  and  dig- 
nified, even  when  it  is  most  martial,  as  in  the  fragments 
about  Salamis.  He  was  undoubtedly  not  only  one  of  the 
greatest  men  of  his  time  but  also  one  of  the  greatest  poets. 

A  different  character  is  Theognis  of  Megara.  Like 
Solon,  he  lived  in  troublous  times,  but  instead  of  rising 
above  the  factious  strifes  of  his  fellow  citizens 
he  took  part  in  them  and  was  embittered  by 
them.  He  evidently  belonged  to  the  oligarchical  party,  for 
he  speaks  of  the  common  people  as  "  base  "  or  "  bad  "  and 
of  the  nobles  as  "good"  or  "noble."  He  had  apparently 
been  banished,  or  had  found  the  political  conditions  at 
Megara  unendurable,  and  was  absent  from  his  native  place 
for  some  time,  visiting  Megara  in  Sicily  and  various  other 
places.  He  speaks  with  abhorrence  of  a  "  tyrant,"  which 
may  show  that  he  had  lived  through  the  period  when  The- 
agenes  was  despot  at  Megara.  In  that  case,  he  must  have 
been  somewhat  advanced  in  years  in  540  B.  c,  the  date 
traditionally  assigned  for  his  poems.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
he  flourished  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century.  About 
6 


72  GREEK  LITERATURE 

fourteen  hundred  lines  of  his  poems  are  preserved,  which 
can  be  only  a  part,  probably  a  small  part,  of  the  whole. 
In  later  times  the  poems  of  Theognis  were  much  used 
in  the  education  of  the  young,  and  what  we  now  have 
appears  to  be  a  collection  of  verses  containing  moral  and 
practical  precepts.  These  are  now  somewhat  discon- 
nected, and  were  evidently  chosen  from  his  works  with 
regard  to  their  contents  rather  than  to  poetic  unity. 
These  precepts  are  addressed  for  the  most  part  to  a  young 
man  named  Cyrnus  (also  called  Polypaides,  i.  e.,  son  of  Poly- 
pai's),  perhaps  a  relative  of  the  poet,  at  any  rate  a  youth  in 
whom  he  took,  as  he  himself  says,  a  fatherly  interest. 
About  two  hundred  lines,  published  in  our  editions  as 
Book  Second,  are  of  a  different  character,  consisting  of 
love-songs.  These  are  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  work  of 
other  poets,  but  they  may  be  youthful  poems  of  Theognis, 
or  they  may  perhaps  have  been  scattered  through  his 
poems  and  collected  in  a  body  at  some  later  time,  just 
as  his  moral  precepts  were  united  in  what  is  now  Book 
First.  There  are  several  passages  in  the  poems  of 
Theognis  which  are  found  also  in  the  poems  of  Solon, 
Mimnermus,  and  Tyrtaeus.  It  is  only  natural  that  some 
fitting  verses  by  other  poets  should  have  crept  into  a 
collection  of  precepts,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
nearly  all  the  verses  current  under  his  name  are  really  by 
Theognis.  The  poet  himself  seems  to  vouch  for  the 
authenticity  of  those  verses  which  contain  the  name  of 
Cyrnus  when  he  says : 

Cyrnus,  as  I  utter  my  wise  thoughts  let  my  seal  be  impressed 
upon  these  verses,  and  they  will  never  be  stolen  without  detection, 
nor  will  any  one  take  something  worse  when  the  good  is  at  hand ; 
but  thus  every  one  will  say:  "They  are  the  verses  of  Theognis  the 
Megarian."  But  though  famed  among  all  men  I  can  not  please  all 
these  citizens.  No  wonder,  son  of  Polypa'is,  for  not  even  Zeus  can 
please  all,  either  when  he  sends  rain  or  withholds  it.1 

1  Lines  19-26. 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY  73 

These  lines  show  not  only  that  Theognis  intended  the 
name  of  Cyrnus  to  be  a  mark  of  his  authorship,  but  also 
that  when  these  words  were  written  he  was  already  a  fa- 
mous poet.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  name 
of  Cyrnus  was  used  in  the  poems  written  before  the  one 
from  which  these  verses  are  taken,  and  even  in  the  later 
poems  it  can  hardly  have  occurred  in  every  line  or  every 
sentence.  The  absence  of  the  name  is  therefore  no  indica- 
tion that  a  passage  is  spurious,  while  its  presence  is  evi- 
dence of  genuineness. 

The  following  passage  shows  the  poet's  aristocratic 
sympathies  and  his  irritation  at  the  progress  of  the  people : 

Cyrnus,  this  city  is  a  city  still,  but  the  people  are  different ;  for 

those  who  formerly  knew  no  laws  or  customs,  but 

e  poems  o      wore  the  skins  0f  goats  about  their  loins,  and  lived 

like  deer  outside  of  this  our  town,  they  are  now  the 

noble,  Polypai'des,  and  those  who  once  were  noble  now  are  base.1 

Something  of  the  same  feeling  is  expressed  in  these 
lines  also : 

Rams  and  asses,  Cyrnus,  and  horses  we  choose  of  good  breed, 
and  wish  them  to  have  good  pedigrees ;  but  a  noble  man  does  not 
hesitate  to  wed  a  base-born  girl  if  she  bring  him  much  money,  nor 
does  a  noble  woman  refuse  to  be  the  wife  of  a  base  but  wealthy  man, 
but  she  chooses  the  rich  instead  of  the  noble.  For  they  honor 
money;  and  the  noble  weds  the  base-born,  and  the  base  the  high- 
born ;  wealth  has  mixed  the  race.  So  do  not  wonder,  Polypai'des, 
that  the  race  of  the  citizens  deteriorates,  for  the  bad  is  mixed  with 
the  good.2 

The  direct  advice  to  Cyrnus  has  to  do  for  the  most  part 
with  the  practical  conduct  of  life  in  what  Theognis  re- 
gards as  the  good  society  of  Megara.  "  Make  none  of  these 
citizens  your  friend  from  the  heart,  Polypai'des,  for  any 
purpose ;  but  seem  in  speech  to  be  a  friend  to  all,  but  join 
with  none  in  any  important  matter."3  ..."  Cyrnus,  adapt 
your  changing  mood  to  all  your  friends,  mixing  in  it  the 

1  Lines  53-58.  2  Lines  183-192.  3  Lines  61-65. 


74  GREEK  LITERATURE 

character  each  one  has  by  nature.  Now  follow  one  and 
now  be  different  in  character.  Wisdom  is  better*  than 
much  virtue."  1  ..."  Do  not  confide  your  business  en- 
tirely even  to  all  your  friends ;  few.  of  many  have  a  faith- 
ful mind."  2  .  .  .  "  You  have  many  companions  in  eating 
and  drinking,  but  fewer  in  any  serious  matter."  3  Such 
cautions  as  these  might  well  be  offered  to  a  young  man 
eager  for  friendship  and  its  pleasures  by  a  man  who  had 
experienced  many  of  life's  disappointments.  Advice  on 
the  subject  of  friendship  is  given  in  these  lines  also : 
"  Never  make  a  bad  man  your  friend,  but  always  avoid  him 
like  a  bad  harbor."  4  And  these :  "  Never  give  up  the  friend 
you  have  and  seek  another,  persuaded  by  the  words  of  evil 
men."5  Some  of  the  advice  offered  may  not  meet v with 
universal  approval  in  our  times.  Such  advice  is  this : 
"  Flatter  well  your  enemy ;  but  when  he  comes  into  your 
power,  do  vengeance  on  him,  making  no  pretense." 6 
Theognis  councils  moderation  in  the  use  of  wine  :  "  Much 
wine  drunk  is  an  evil ;  but  if  one  drink  it  with  understand- 
ing, it  is  not  an  evil  but  a  blessing."  7  In  several  places 
he  speaks  of  himself  as  a  man  of  advanced  years,  and  he 
dreads  the  approach  of  old  age  and  death  in  a  tone  not 
unlike  that  of  Mimnermus.  Again  he  contrasts  the  joys 
of  life  with  the  long  night  of  death,  striking  a  note  even  in 
his  day  not  new  to  Greek  poetry,  and  since  then  repeated 
in  many  tongues  and  many  ages.  "  I  sport  rejoicing  in  my 
youth,"  he  says,  "for  when  I  have  lost  my  life,  I  shall  lie 
long  dumb  as  a  stone,  and  I  shall  leave  the  light  of  the 
sun,  and  however  good  I  be,  I  shall  see  nothing  more."  8 
And  elsewhere  he  sings :  "  I  do  not  care  to  lie  on  a  royal 
couch  when  I  am  dead,  but  may  I  have  some  good  in  life."  9 
Yet  more  than  the  night  of  death  the  trials  of  poverty 
seem  terrible  to  Theognis.     "Poverty  overcomes  a  good 

1  Lines  1071-1074.        4  Lines  113,  114.  '  Lines  509,  510. 

2  Lines  73,  74.  6  Lines  1151,  1152.        8  Lines  567-570. 

3  Lines  115,  116.  6  Lines  363,  364.  9  Lines  1191,  1192. 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC   POETRY  75 

man  most  of  all  things,  more  than  old  age,  Cyrnus,  or 
fever.  To  avoid  it  he  should  throw  himself  even  into  the 
billowy  sea,  and  down  from  beetling  rocks  ;  for  a  man  over- 
come by  poverty  can  neither  say  nor  do  anything,  but  his 
tongue  is  fettered";1  and,  "  Better  is  it,  Cyrnus,  for  a  poor 
man  to  die  than  to  live  worn  by  harsh  poverty."2  But 
with  all  his  worldly  wisdom  Theognis  does  not  forget  what 
is  due  to  the  gods.  "  Pray  to  the  gods  ;  power  is  with  the 
gods ;  without  the  gods  naught  either  good  or  evil  comes 
to  men,"3  is  the  advice  he  gives  his  young  friend.  For 
himself,  however,  he  has  his  doubts  about  the  divine 
government  of  the  world  : 

How,  O  king  of  the  gods,  is  this  just,  that  a  man  who  keeps 
himself  from  unjust  deeds,  transgressing  naught  and  swearing  no 
false  oath,  but  being  just,  suffers  unjust  misfortunes  ?  What  other 
man,  looking  on  him,  would  thereafter  honor  the  immortals,  and 
with  what  spirit,  when  a  wicked  and  violent  man,  who  carets  not  for 
the  wrath  of  man  or  god,  commits  his  unjust  deeds  swollen  with 
wealth,  while  the  just  waste  away  worn  by  harsh  poverty  ? 4 

The  apparent  injustice  of  the  lot  of  men  troubles  The- 
ognis as  it  has  troubled  many  before  and  since,  and  he  has 
no  answer  to  the  question  he  has  asked.  Still,  the  tone 
of  his  poetry  is  on  the  whole  healthy  and  courageous.  He 
loves  the  world,  and  is  glad  to  believe  that  his  poems  are  to 
live  in  it  after  him.  His  proud  confidence  in  the  endur. 
ance  of  his  fame  is  expressed  in  these  lines : 

I  have  given  you  wings,  with  which  you  will  fly  easily  raised 
up  over  the  boundless  sea  and  all  the  earth ;  and  at  all  feasts  and 
banquets  you  will  be  present  in  the  mouths  of  many;  and  to 
their  clear-toned  flutes  young  men  in  charming  revels  shall  sing  in 
beautiful  clear  songs  of  you ;  and  when  you  go  beneath  the  covering 
of  the  dark  earth  to  the  much- wailing  realms  of  Hades,  not  even 
then,  though  dead,  shall  you  lose  your  fame,  but  you  shall  be  cared 
for  by  men,  keeping  a  deathless  name  forever,  Cyrnus,  going  about 

1  Lines  173-178.  3  Lines  171,  172. 

2  Lines  181, 182.  4  Lines  743-752. 


76  GREEK  LITERATURE 

through  Greece  and  'mongst  the  islands,  passing  beyond  the  fishy, 
barren  sea,  not  borne  by  mortal  steeds ;  but  the  glorious  gifts  of  the 
violet-crowned  Muses  shall  send  you;  for  to  all  who  care  for  them 
you  shall  be  a  theme  of  song,  while  earth  and  sun  exist.1 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  extant  verses  of  Theognis 
are  detached  selections  chosen  for  their  contents,  not  for 
their  poetic  value,  it  is  evident  that  Theognis  was  really 
a  poet.  His  verses  run  smoothly  into  each  other,  his 
diction  is  dignified  without  being  stilted,  easy  without  being 
commonplace,  and  his  imagination  lacks  neither  vigor  nor 
refinement.  His  contemporary  Phocylides  of 
Miletus  appears  to  have  been  in  every  respect 
his  inferior.  He  composed  elegiac  verses,  but  these 
were  not  intended,  like  those  of  Theognis,  to  be  sung  at 
banquets,  but  rather  to  be  passed  about  in  conversation 
or  to  be  read.  Only  a  few  of  these  verses  exist  to-day. 
The  poem  of  two  hundred  and  thirty  hexameter  lines 
which  has  been  handed  down  under  the  name  of  Pho- 
cylides is  the  work  of  an  Alexandrian  Jew,  and  is  chiefly 
interesting  on  account  of  the  mixture  of  Greek  and 
Hebrew  ideas  it  contains.  Phocylides  did  also  write 
hexameters,  but  of  these  little  is  preserved.  His  elegiacs 
consist  of  sentences  limited  to  one  distich;  they  are  not 
connected  poems,  but  mere  gnomes  or  maxims  neatly  and 
concisely  expressed,  but  without  poetic  worth.  In  several 
instances,  the  first  part  of  the  distich  is  taken  up  with  the 
words  "  This  also  is  Phocylides's."  The  most  interesting  of 
the  extant  sayings,  which  has  been  imitated  by  more  than 
one  later  writer,  is  this:  "This  also  is  Phocylides's: 
Lerians  are  bad ;  not  one,  and  another  not  so ;  all,  except 
Procles — and  Procles  is  a  Lerian  ! " 

Xenophanes  of  Colophon  was  a  contemporary  of  The- 
ognis and  Phocylides,  perhaps  a  little  older  than  they.  His 
chief  importance  is  as  a  philosopher,  but  he  also  wrote  elegiac 

1  Lines  237-252. 


LYRIC  POETRY— ELEGIAC  POETRY        77 

verses  not  connected  with  his  philosophical  theories.     He 

led  a  wandering  life  in  Sicily  and  Italy,  where  he  is  said  to 

have  helped  to  found  the  town  of  Elea.     Not 
Xenophanes.  „  „ ,  .  .  ,  , , 

many  fragments  of  his  poems  remain,  and  these, 

though  technically  good  and  interesting,  show  little  poetic 
fervor  or  imagination.  In  one  of  them  Xenophanes  pro- 
tests against  the  importance  attached  to  athletics  and  the 
honors  paid  to  victorious  athletes ;  in  another  he  describes 
the  requisites  for  a  perfect  feast,  beginning  as  follows : 

For  now  the  room  is  clean,  and  the  hands  of  all,  and  the  cups; 
and  one  puts  twined  garlands  on  our  heads,  another  in  a  bowl 
brings  fragrant  myrrh ;  the  mixing-bowl  stands  brimming  with  good 
cheer;  and  other  wine  is  there  which  will  not  fail,  sweet  wine  in 
jars,  with  odor  as  of  flowers ;  and  in  the  midst  the  incense  breathes 
pure  fragrance ;  and  water  is  there,  cool  and  sweet  and  pure. 

The  rest  of  the  fragment  mentions  the  other  requisites — 
bread,  cheese,  an  altar  with  flowers,  etc. — and  advises  against 
drinking  so  much  that  one  can  not  get  home  alone,  besides 
recommending  libations  and  prayers  to  the  gods,  and  the 
choice  of  fitting  and  interesting  subjects  for  conversation. 

Elegiac  verses  are  ascribed  to  several  of  the  Seven  Wise 
Men  (besides  Solon,  who  was  included  in  the  number) :  Chilo, 
of  Sparta ;  Pittacus,  of  Mitylene ;  Periander,  of  Corinth ; 
and  Bias,  of  Priene.  None  of  these  verses  now  remain, 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  they  were  falsely  ascribed  to 
these  authors.  Several  other  authors  of  elegies 
Other  elegiac  are  alg0  menti0ned.  One  of  these,  Demodocus, 
of  Leros,  was  a  contemporary  of  Phocylides, 
and  may  have  entered  into  a  contest  of  wit  with  him,  for 
a  distich  is  ascribed  to  him  identical  with  that  of  Phocyl- 
ides about  the  Lerians,  but  with  "  Chians  "  substituted  for 
"Lerians."  Another  distich  of  Demodocus  states  that 
"The  Milesians  are  not  fools,  but  they  act  like  fools." 
Asius,  of  Samos,  author  of  genealogical  epics  in  hexameter 
verse,  also  composed  elegies,  but  little  is  known  of  him  or 
his  poems.     Pigres,  of  Halicarnassus,  is  said  to  have  in- 


78  GREEK  LITERATURE 

serted  pentameters  between  the  lines  of  the  Iliad.  Many 
poets,  best  known  as  authors  of  other  kinds  of  verse,  also 
wrote  elegies.  The  form  of  the  distich  makes  it  a  natural 
vehicle  for  the  expression  of  brief  and  pointed  thoughts  or 
sentiments,  such  as  those  ascribed  to  Phocylides,  or  some  of 
those  found  in  the  poems  of  Solon.  This  quality  of  the 
distich  led  to  its  frequent  use  all  through  the  classical 
period  for  inscriptions,  and  especially  epitaphs.  As  such 
inscriptions  were  often  strikingly  apt  and  to  the  point,  the 
word  epigram,  which  originally  meant  merely  inscription, 
has  come  to  be  applied  to  pungent,  sententious  remarks. 
Epigrams  ascribed  to  many  of  the  famous  men  of  Greece 
have  been  handed  down  to  us,  but  in  many  instances  their 
authorship  is  doubted.  In  any  case,  such  couplets,  though 
they  show  one  of  the  uses  to  which  the  elegiac  distich  was 
put,  are  of  little  importance  in  the  history  of  literature. 


CHAPTEE   VII 

IAMBIC  POETRY-BEAST-FABLES 

The  origin  of  iambic  poetry — Archilochus,  first  half  of  the  seventh 
century  b.  c. — Simonides  of  Amorgus,  second  half  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury b.  c. — Hipponax,  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century  b.  c. — Ananius — 
Solon — Beast-fables — iEsop. 

As  the  elegiac  metre  arose  by  a  modification  of  the  epic 
hexameter,  so  the  iambic  rhythm  arose  by  a  modification 
of  the  natural  prose  utterance,  for  the  alternation  of  long 
and  short  syllables  is  so  usual  in  Greek  that  it  is  sometimes 
hard  to  avoid  writing  or  speaking  in  a  sort  of  rough  iam- 
bics. Such  a  rhythm  was  naturally  popular,  and  was  natu- 
rally adopted  in  the  festivals  at  which  gibes 

and  -jokes  were  exchanged.  The  connection  of 
poetry.  J.  ° 

iambic  poetry  with  the  festivals  of  Demeter  is 
therefore  not  improbable  (see  page  61).  Certainly  the 
iambic  poems  partake  of  the  nature  of  satiric  gibes,  though 
no  longer  rude  in  expression  or  without  the  artistic  merit 
which  distinguishes  real  poetry  from  popular  songs.  Iambic 
metres  were,  as  has  been  said  before  (page  62),  used  for 
various  purposes,  and  they  never  went  out  of  use,  but  when 
iambic  poetry  as  a  distinct  class  is  spoken  of,  that  poetry  is 
meant  which  had  its  rise  with  Archilochus,  was  cultivated 
for  a  short  time,  and  then  disappeared  until  it  was  revived 
by  imitators  in  the  Alexandrian  period. 

Of  the  iambic  poets,  Archilochus,  of  Paros,  was  the  first 
and  greatest.  He  belonged  to  an  important  Parian  family. 
His  father's  name  was  Telesicles ;  his  mother  was  a  slave 

79 


80  GREEK  LITERATURE 

by  the  name  of  Enipo.  The  dates  of  his  birth  and  death 
are  unknown,  but  his  life  was  passed  in  the  first  half  of  the 
seventh  century  b.  c.  He  was,  then,  a  contem- 
porary of  Callinus,  though  perhaps  somewhat 
younger  than  he.  His  verses  mentioned  the  chief  events  of 
his  life,  and  enabled  ancient  writers  to  transmit  to  us  some 
biographical  information.  From  them  and  from  the  ex- 
tant fragments  of  the  poems  we  gain  the  following  facts : 
Some  unknown  event  made  Archilochus  poor,  and  he  left 
Paros  to  seek  his  fortune  at  Thasos,  where  he  probably  ex- 
pected to  be  enriched  by  gold-mining.  In  this  he  was  dis- 
appointed, for  he  succeeded  in  making  nothing  but  enemies 
at  Thasos,  and  presently  he  went  to  the  adjacent  mainland 
as  a  mercenary  soldier.  How  long  he  remained  a  soldier  of 
fortune  or  where  he  fought  is  not  known,  except  that  a 
fragment  of  one  of  his  poems  states  that  in  a  fight  with  a 
Thracian  tribe  he  fled  and  threw  away  his  shield.  He  must 
have  returned  to  Paros,  for  he  is  said  to  have  died  in  a 
battle  between  the  Parians  and  the  Naxians.  How  old  he 
was  at  this  time  we  do  not  know,  but  he  was  still  young 
enough  to  bear  arms.  All  the  extant  fragments  of  his 
poems  and  all  the  information  we  have  from  other  sources 
show  us  Archilochus  as  a  man  in  full  youthful  vigor.  It  is 
therefore  probable  that  his  death  took  place  when  he  was 
not  much  over  forty  years  old.  At  some  time,  we  do  not 
know  when  nor  where,  Archilochus  wished  to  marry  Neo- 
bule,  daughter  of  Lycambes,  but  his  suit  was  rejected. 
Thereupon  his  love  turned  to  hate,  and  he  attacked  father 
and  daughter  alike  with  stinging  verses,  which  made  them 
the  laughing-stock  of  the  place.  Both  are  said  to  have 
committed  suicide.  The  story  is  probably  not  true,  at 
least  so  far  as  the  suicide  is  concerned,  but  it  shows  the 
power  ascribed  by  the  ancients  to  the  satiric  verse  of  Archil- 
ochus. He  appears  throughout  as  a  bold,  passionate,  some- 
what ungovernable  nature,  one  who  would  love  the  excite- 
ment of  battle  rather  than  the  quiet  of  a  peaceful  life.   The 


IAMBIC   POETRY— BEAST-FABLES  81 

fact  that  he  says  he  threw  away  his  shield  need  not  make 

us  believe  that  he  was  cowardly,  for  a  coward  would  not 

have  been  likely  to  become  a  mercenary  soldier,  nor  would 

any  one  mention  the  loss  of  his  shield  who  was  not  sure  that 

his  reputation  for  courage  was  so  great  that  one  flight  would 

not  destroy  it.     This  confession  was  imitated  by  Alcaeus 

and  Anacreon  among  Greek  poets,  and  by  Horace  among 

the  Eomans. 

The  ancients  admired  the  poetry  of  Archilochus  greatly, 

associating  his  name  with  that  of  Homer.     It  is  therefore 

peculiarly  unfortunate  that  his  poems  are  al- 

*h\-rlry  °f  most  entirely  lost,  for  there  is  little  in  the  ex- 
Archilochus.  J 

tant   fragments    to    justify   such    admiration. 

There  is  life  and  vigor,  lightness  of  touch  and  elegance  of 
diction,  variety  of  sentiment  and  of  subject,  but  more  than 
this  it  is  hard  to  find  in  the  short  fragments  preserved  to 
us.  They  consist  of  elegiac  verses,  iambic  trimeters,  tro- 
chaic tetrameters,1  and  other  less  familiar  varieties  of  verse. 
Archilochus  is  peculiarly  hard  to  translate,  as  the  charm 
of  his  diction  is  found  in  great  measure  in  the  aptness  of  his 
words  and  the  concise  and  pointed  manner  of  expression, 
qualities  which  are  likely  to  be  lost  in  translation.  A  few 
extracts  will  at  least  give  an  idea  of  the  variety  of  subjects 
and  sentiments  to  be  found  even  in  the  unsatisfactory  frag- 
ments now  existing.  Of  himself  Archilochus  says  :  "  I  am 
a  servant  of  Lord  Enyalius  [the  war-god],  understanding 
also  the  lovely  gift  of  the  Muses."  Again  he  says  :  "  In  my 
spear  my  bread  is  kneaded,  in  my  spear  Ismaric  wine,  lean- 
ing on  my  spear  I  drink,"  words  which  express  clearly  and 
vividly  his  dependence  upon  his  arms  for  his  livelihood. 
The  loss  of  his  shield  is  expressed  as  follows :  "  Some  one 
of  the  Saeans  rejoices  in  my  shield,  which  excellent  arm  I 


1  "Do  not | lift  him | from  the | bracken. | Leave  him|lyingjwhere  he | fell  " 
may  serve  as  an  example  of  the  rhythm  of  the  trochaic  tetrameter  in 
English. 


82  GREEK  LITERATURE 

left  behind  a  bush  against  my  will ;  but  1  myself  escaped 
the  end  of  death.  That  shield — well,  let  it  go ;  I'll  get  an- 
other not  inferior."  Several  fragments  are  said  to  refer  to 
the  death  of  his  sister's  husband,  who  was  lost  in  a  ship- 
wreck. 

Lamentable  are  our  woes,  Pericles,  nor  does  any  one  of  the  citi- 
zens rejoice  in  festivals,  such  is  the  mourning  for  them,  nor  does 
the  city;  for  the  wave  of  the  much  roaring  sea  has  swallowed  up 
such  men,  and  we  have  breasts  swollen  with  grief.  But  the  gods 
have  given  firm  endurance  as  a  drug  for  incurable  ills;  sometimes 
one  has  these  ills,  sometimes  another ;  now  they  have  turned  to  us, 
and  we  lament  a  bleeding  wound,  but  they  will  pass  again  to  others ; 
so  straightway  bear  them,  putting  away  womanish  grief. 

And  again :  "  I  shall  not  cure  anything  by  wailing, 
nor  do  any  harm  by  turning  to  enjoyments  and  feasts." 
Archilochus  seems  to  have  been  quite  willing  to  enjoy  him- 
self in  various  ways.  In  one  fragment  he  urges  some  one  to 
"  go  through  the  ship  with  a  cup  and  take  the  covers  from 
the  hollow  casks  and  draw  the  red  wine  from  the  dregs ; 
for  we  can  not  keep  sober  on  this  watch."  Of  Thasos  he 
says  :  "  But  this  island  stands  like  an  ass's  back,  clad  with 
rough  woods ;  for  there  is  no  such  fair  and  lovely  place  as 
is  about  the  streams  of  Siris"  [in  Paros].  Evidently  the 
poet-soldier  did  not  like  Thasos. 

Neobule  is  mentioned  in  two  fragments,  but  we  learn 
little  about  her.  In  one  Archilochus  speaks  of  her  as  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Lycambes,  in  the  other  he  longs  even 
to  touch  her  hand.  In  some  lines  addressed  to  Lycambes, 
the  poet  says :  "  Father  Lycambes,  what  is  this  you  said  ? 
Who  took  away  your  sense,  on  which  you  used  to  lean  ?  But 
now  you're  a  great  laughing-stock  to  all  your  fellow  citi- 
zens." The  hymn  to  Heracles  was  very  famous  throughout 
antiquity.  It  had  a  refrain,  "  Tenella  kallinike,"  which  we 
are  told  was  sung  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  words.  Prob- 
ably some  voices  of  a  chorus  sang  the  real  words,  while  others 
sang  "  Tenella  kallinike."   Something  similar  to  this  is  some- 


IAMBIC  POETRY— BEAST-FABLES  83 

times  done  in  modern  times,  especially  by  negro  choruses 
and  college  glee-clubs.  The  use  of  voices  as  an  accompani- 
ment is  said  to  have  been  forced  upon  Archilochus  by  the 
failure  of  his  flute-player  to  appear,  but  it  is  more  probable 
that  he  found  something  of  the  sort  in  use  among  the  peo- 
ple and  adopted  it.  The  word  "  tenella  "  appears  to  have 
no  meaning  of  its  own.  "  Kallinike  "  means  "  glorious  vic- 
tor," or  "  gloriously  victorious."  The  words  of  the  hymn,  so 
far  as  they  are  preserved,  are  "  Hail,  Lord,  Heracles,  thy- 
self and  Iolaus,  warriors  two.     Hail,  Lord,  Heracles." 

Other  iambic  poets  are  Simonides  of  Amorgus,  Hippo- 
nax,  and  Ananius.  They  all  lacked  the  genius  of  Archilo- 
chus, and  the  fragments  of  their  poems  are  inferior  to  his 
verses  in  grace  and  aptness  of  expression  as  well  as  in 
variety  of  subject. 

Simonides,1  son  of  Crines,  was  born  at  Samos,  but  emi- 
grated to  Amorgus.  He  is  called  Simonides  of  Amorgus  to 
distinguish  him  from  the  later  and  more  famous  poet  Simon- 
ides of  Ceos.  It  is  said  that  Simonides  led  the 
Simonides  coiony  from  Samos  which  settled  Amorgus,  and 
the  date  of  the  colonization  is  ordinarily  said 
to  be  693  b.  c.  In  that  case,  Simonides  would  be  older  than 
Archilochus,  which  is  improbable.  In  all  probability  he 
belongs  to  the  second  half  of  the  seventh  century,  perhaps 
about  640  b.  c.  and  the  following  years.  He  is  said  to  have 
composed  elegies,  among  them  a  history  of  Samos,  but  these 
are  lost.  Two  entire  iambic  poems  and  several  fragments 
are  preserved.  The  longest  poem  (of  one  hundred  and  eight- 
een lines)  is  a  satire  on  women.  This  is  not  personal  satire 
or  abuse,  such  as  was  employed  by  Archilochus,  but  is  gen- 
eral in  its  character,  and  therefore  more  gentle.  We  are 
told  by  Lucian  that  Simonides  did  direct  some  of  his  poems 
against  an  individual,  but  no  fragments  of  such  personal 

1  The  spelling  Semonides  was  probably  invented  as  a  means  of  dis- 
tinguishing this  poet  from  others  of  the  same  name,  especially  Simon- 
ides of  Ceos. 


84  GREEK  LITERATURE 

satire  by  him  remain.  If  we  can  judge  of  him  by  what  we 
have,  we  should  say  that  he  was  not  an  adventurous  soldier 
like  Archilochus,  but  rather  a  quiet  and  orderly,  probably  a 
prosperous,  citizen.  In  his  poem  upon  women,  he  divides 
them  into  classes,  each  of  which  is  descended  from  some 
beast — the  swine,  the  fox,  the  dog,  the  donkey,  the  cat,  the 
horse,  the  monkey,  and  the  bee.  Two  classes  only  are  ex- 
ceptions, for  the  woman  who  is  so  stupid  that  she  does  not 
know  enough  to  draw  her  chair  to  the  fire  when  she  is  cold 
is  said  to  be  formed  from  earth,  while  the  variable  woman 
is  sprung  from  the  sea.  Of  course  the  woman  descended 
from  the  bee  is  regarded  as  the  only  really  desirable  one. 
"  He  who  gets  her  is  lucky ;  for  she  is  the  only  one  upon 
whom  no  blame  rests,  but  under  her  the  property  flourishes 
and  increases.  Loving,  she  grows  old  with  her  loving 
spouse,  the  mother  of  a  fair  and  famous  race."  As  a  whole, 
this  poem  is  rather  tedious,  though  not  without  some  ex- 
cellent passages.  The  different  classes  of  women  are  treated 
with  too  much  sameness,  and  one  feels  that  the  poet  is 
making  a  conscious  effort  to  be  exhaustive.  The  other 
complete  poem  (of  twenty-four  lines)  contains  rather  pessi- 
mistic expressions  about  human  life  addressed  to  a  "  boy," 
perhaps  the  poet's  son. 

Hipponax  of  Ephesus  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
sixth  century.  He  was  driven  from  his  native  town  and 
lived  at  Clazomenae.  He  was  poor,  lame,  and 
deformed,  according  to  some  authorities,  but 
his  lameness  may  be  a  mere  invention  to  account  for  his 
having  invented  the  "  lame  "  or  "  limping  "  (scazon  or  clioli- 
anibus)  iambic  trimeter,  a  line  in  which  the  last  foot  is  a 
spondee  instead  of  an  iambus.  About  one  hundred  frag- 
ments of  his  poems  are  preserved,  but  most  of  these  are  short 
and  unsatisfactory.  They  are  in  various  metres,  though 
the  limping  iambics  predominate.  This  is  an  inelegant  and 
ungraceful,  though  effective,  verse,  which  did  not  remain  in 
constant  use  after  Hipponax,  but  was  taken  up  again  in 


IAMBIC   POETRY— BEAST-FABLES  85 

Alexandrian  times.  Hipponax  was  a  bitter  and  virulent 
satirist.  He  attacked  many  persons,  beginning,  it  is  said, 
with  his  own  parents.  He  then  lampooned  two  sculptors 
— Bupalus  and  Athenis — who  he  said  had  made  an  insult- 
ing portrait  of  him.  A  painter,  Mimnes,  is  also  an  object 
of  his  mockery.  Of  these  poems  enough  remains  to  show 
that  the  wit  of  Hipponax  was  coarse,  but  not  enough  to 
show  why  it  was  effective.  Several  fragments  with  the 
name  of  Bupalus  prove  the  truth  of  the  story  that  he  was 
attacked  by  Hipponax,  but  teach  us  nothing  further.  A 
few  fragments  beg  for  clothing  or  complain  that  clothing 
and  other  things  have  not  been  given  to  Hipponax,  and 
the  belief  in  his  poverty  is  further  strengthened  by  these 
lines :  "  Wealth,  for  he  is  blind,  came  to  my  house  not  at 
all,  saying,  '  Hipponax,  I  give  you  thirty  minae  of  silver,' 
and  many  other  things;  for  he  is  base  of  mind."  Hip- 
ponax shows  his  temper  in  the  lines :  "  Two  happy  days 
a  woman  brings  a  man  :  first  when  he  marries  her,  the  sec- 
ond when  he  bears  her  to  the  grave." 

Ananius  is  little  more  than  a  name.  Neither  his  birth- 
place nor  his  date  is  known,  though  he  was  probably  later 
\  than  Hipponax.  Some  of  his  lines  end  with 
two  spondees,  which  may  be  an  attempt  to 
excel  those  of  Hipponax  in  lameness.  The  longest  extant 
fragment  is  a  list  of  fish  and  viands  with  remarks  on  the 
seasorL  when  each  is  best.  Besides  this,  only  four  brief 
fragments  remain. 

Solon,  as  has  been  said,  was  a  writsr  of  iambic  verse, 

but  his  elegiac  poems  are  his  chief  works.     In  character, 

his  iambics  differ  from   those  of  Archilochus 

in   being  less  virulent,  and   from  the  extant 

fragments  of  Simonides  in  being  more  interesting. 

After  Hipponax  iambic  verse  ceased  to  be  cultivated  as 
a  distinct  kind  of  poetry,  appearing  only  spo- 
radically in  later  Greek  literature.     Somewhat 
akin  to  iambic  poetry  are  the  beast-fables.     The  originator 


86  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  this  kind  of  satirical  tale,  which  represents  animals  doing 
the  typical  deeds  of  men,  was  said  to  be  iEsop,  a  foreign 
and  deformed  slave,  either  Thracian,  Phrygian,  or  Ethiop- 
ian. Herodotus  says  he  was  a  slave  of  Iadmon  at  Samos, 
in  the  time  of  King  Amasis,  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth 
century.  He  was  said  to  have  traveled  much,  and  to  have 
been  murdered  at  Delphi.  Numerous  tales  of  his  adven- 
tures were  current.  The  fables  ascribed  to  him  were  trans- 
mitted orally,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  ever 
committed  them  to  writing.  In  fact,  it  is  not  certain  that 
he  ever  existed,  for  the  Greeks  loved  to  ascribe  the  inven- 
tion of  everything  to  some  definite  person,  and  ^Esop  may 
be  simply  the  mythical  inventor  of  the  fable.  Tales  as- 
cribed to  him  were,  however,  very  familiar  throughout  the 
classical  period.  Socrates  is  said  to  have  turned  one  of 
these  tales  into  verse,  and  Aristophanes  speaks  of  it  as  dis- 
graceful not  to  know  ^Esop.  The  tales  were  handed  down 
in  prose,  but  the  earliest  extant  collections  are  in  verse,  by 
the  Greek  Babrius,  who  wrote  in  the  first  century  after 
Christ,  and  the  Latin  writers  Phsedrus  and  Avianus.  A 
prose  collection  by  Demetrius  of  Phalerum  (about  345  to 
280  B.  c.)  has  been  lost.  Many  of  the  fables  ascribed  to 
iEsop  are  to  be  found  in  the  Panchatantra,  the  Jdtakas, 
and  other  ancient  writings  in  India.  They  migrated  in  the 
mouths  of  the  people  as  well  as  in  written  form  to  different 
nations,  and  are  not  the  inventions  of  iEsop,  though  he 
may  have  been  the  first  to  make  them  popular  in  Europe, 
thereby  gaining  the  credit  of  inventing  them. 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

GREEK  MUSIC-MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY 

Hyagnis,  Marsyas,  Olympus — Terpander,  about  700  b.  c. — The. 
nome — Clonas,  about  680  (?)  b.  c. — Musical  modes — Melic  poetry, 
monodic  and  choral — Alcaeus,  about  600-570  b.  c. — Sappho,  about  600 
B>  c. — Anacreon,  about  540  b.  c. — The  Anacreontics. 

The  development  of  Greek  lyric  poetry  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  development  of  music.  The  elegy  proba- 
bly derived  its  name  from  the  Phrygian  name  for  the  flute, 
and  in  other  kinds  of  lyric  poetry  the  impulse  toward 
improvement  is  due  in  great  measure  to  the  introduction  of 
fl  new  and  improved  instruments  from  Phrygia 

of  music  and  iJydia.     The  early  history  of  music  is  ob- 

upon  lyric  scure,  and  much  that  the  Greeks  believed 
poetry*  itbout  it  is  mythical,  but  its   influence   upon 

literature^was  so  great  that  it  can  not  be  entirely  passed 
over.  The  lyre  (cithara)  of  the  Homeric  poets  was  a  simple 
instrument,  said  to  have  had  only  four  strings,  and  the  flute 
of  the  same  period  was  a  simple  shepherd's  pipe.  The 
Phrygians  and  Lydians  had,  however,  better  and  more 
powerful  instruments.  The  men  to  whom  the  Greeks 
ascribed  the  invention  of  new  and  better  music  apparently 
H        .  adopted   these   Asiatic    instruments,    perhaps 

Marsyas,'  making  some  improvements  immediately,  and 

and  certainly  some   improvements   were  made  by 

Olympus.         their  successors.     Hyagnis  and  the  satyr  Mar. 
syas  are  purely  mythical.    Marsyas  is  said  to  have  challenged 
Apollo  to  a  musical  contest,  in  which  the  satyr  with  his 
7  87 


88  GREEK  LITERATURE 

flute  was  defeated  by  the  god  with  his  lyre.  This  can  at 
most  mean  that  when  the  Phrygian  flute  was  first  intro- 
duced it  was  considered  inferior  to  the  lyre.  The  third 
name  mentioned  as  that  of  an  innovator  in  flute  music  is 
Olympus.  He  was  probably  a  real  person  of  the  eighth 
century  b.  c,  but  just  what  his  innovations  were  can 
hardly  be  determined.  The  airs  ascribed  to  him  were 
probably  very  early  airs,  the  real  author  of  which  was 
unknown.  The  airs  themselves  are  now  lost,  and  we  know 
little  or  nothing  of  their  nature.  The  names  of  -several 
pupils  of  Olympus  are  recorded,  but  we  know  nothing  of 
their  music.  It  is  probable  that  all  these  early  musicians 
composed  words  for  their  airs,  but  words  as  well  as  airs  are 
lost. 

The  iEolian  island  of  Lesbos,  lying  close  to  the  shore  of 
Asia  Minor,  plays  an  important  part  in  the  development 
of  music  and  of  lyric  poetry.  Here,  probably 
at  Antissa,  was  the  birthplace  of  Terpander,  to 
whom  many  improvements  in  music  and  poetry  are  ascribed. 
He  lived  apparently  in  the  reign  of  King  Midas  II  (738-695 
b.  a).  He  was  a  player  of  the  lyre,  and  traveled  much, 
probably  playing  and  singing  at  the  festivals  of  Apollo,  the 
god  of  the  lyre.  It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  reports 
of  his  visits  to  Delphi  are  founded  upon  fact.  .  By  com- 
mand of  an  oracle  he  was  called  to  Sparta  to  calm  the 
spirits  of  the  citizens  in  a  time  of  domestic  discord.  In 
this  he  was  successful,  and  the  Spartans  granted  great 
honors  to  him  and  his  descendants.  He  was  henceforth  an 
adopted  citizen  of  Sparta,  and  his  music  and  poetry  are 
closely  associated  with  that  city.  He  is  said  to  have 
invented  the  seven-stringed  lyre,  supplanting  the  old  lyre 
of  four  strings.  In  all  probability  the  seven-stringed  lyre 
existed  already,  but  Terpander  made  it  known  at  Sparta 
and  throughout  Greece.  Perhaps,  too,  he  improved  it  and 
made  it  capable  of  more  varied  or  more  agreeable  melodies. 
His  poetry  was  in  part — probably  for   the   most  part — in 


GREEK  MUSIC  89 

hexameters,  though  one  short  fragment  consists  entirely  of 

spondees,  and  many  metrical  innovations  are  ascribed  to 

him.     Among  other  things  he  is  said  to  have 

The  improved  the  kind  of  sacred  poem  called  the 

nome.  x         ..        .,  ,.    .  .         f     ,      _  ■     ., 

nome,  giving  it  seven  divisions  instead  of  three. 

The  origin  of  the  name  nome  is  obscure,  and  opinions  differ 
somewhat  concerning  the  nature  of  the  nome  itself.  It 
was,  however,  a  sacred  poem,  sung  in  honor  of  a  god,  often 
the  god  Apollo,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  lyre  or  the 
flute.  Some  nomes,  perhaps  the  earliest,  were  purely  instru- 
mental, without  words.  How  the  nome  differed  from  the 
hymn  is  not  quite  clear,  but  perhaps  its  essential  feature 
was  the  division  into  three  or — after  Terpander — seven 
parts.  Nomes  are  ascribed  to  Olympus  and  his  school  as 
well  as  to  Terpander  and  other  early  musicians  and  poets, 
but  the  nome  as  a  distinct  kind  of  composition  is  limited 
to  a  brief  period. 

The  most  important  composer  of  nomes  with  flute 
accompaniment;  was  Clonas,  a  native  of  either  Tegea,  in 
Lrcadia,  or  Thebes,  in  Boeotia.  He  lived 
"apparently  a  little  later  than  Terpander.  He 
is  said  to  have  been  the  inventor  of  nomes  to  be  sung  to 
the  flute,  and  also  of  processional  songs  called  prosoclia. 
The  most  that  can  probably  be  ascribed  to  him  is  improve- 
ment, not  invention,  of  these  classes  of  poems.  Several 
other  authors  of  aulodic  nomes — that  is,  nomes  accompanied 
by  the  flute — are  mentioned,  but  their  names  have  little 
meaning  for  us,  as  almost  nothing  is  known  of  their  works. 

The  Greeks  composed  their  music  not  only  in  different 
keys,  but  also  in  different  modes.  These  probably  differed 
from  one  another,  somewhat  as  the  minor  and 
modes'11  major   keys   differ  in  modern  music,  not  by 

height  or  depth  of  pitch,  but  by  different  ar- 
rangements of  the  intervals  between  the  notes.  The  Greeks 
had  at  least  nine  such  modes,  but  the  best  known  and  most 
important  were   the   Doric,  Phrygian,  and  Lydian.      The 


90  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Doric  mode  was  supposed  to  have  more  vigor  and  dignity 
than  the  others,  the  Phrygian  was  more  ecstatic,  tending 
to  excite  the  hearers  beyond  measure,  while  the  Lydian  was 
soft  and  enervating.  The  invention  of  the  Lydian  mode 
was  ascribed  to  Olympus.  These  modes  were  not  confined 
each  to  one  kind  of  verse  or  rhythm,  but  the  character  of 
the  poem  to  be  sung  and  the  mode  of  the  music  were  un- 
doubtedly intended  to  agree  with  each  other.  The  modes 
therefore  had  some  influence  upon  poetry,  especially  upon 
those  kinds  of  poetry  which  were  sung  to  elaborate  accom- 
paniments or  in  which  the  music  was  for  any  reason  of 
especial  importance. 

Those  varieties  of  lyric  poetry  in  which  the  musical  ac- 
companiment is  of  great  importance — those  varieties,  that 
Melic  poetry,  *s  to  sav>  which  are  intended  to  be  sung,  not 
monodic  and  repeated,  nor  even  simply  chanted — are  classed 
choral.  together  as  melic  poetry,  from  the  Greek  word 

melos,  meaning  air  or  tune.1  This  includes  all  lyric  poetry 
except  the  elegiac  and  iambic  poems.  Melic  poetry  is  itself 
divided  into  monodic  and  choral  melic  poetry,  the  first  be- 
ing sung  by  one  voice,  the  second  by  a  chorus.2  In  elegiac 
and  iambic  verse,  as  in  the  epic  hexameter,  the  poems  are 
written,  sung,  and  recited  continuously,  with  no  break  in 
the  verse  to  mark  the  end  of  one  division  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  next.3  In  melic  poetry  each  poem  is  divided 
into  strophes,  or  stanzas.  In  monodic  poetry  the  strophes 
are  simple,  but  in  choral  poetry  they  are  often  long  and 
complicated  and  composed  in  metres  which  seem  difficult 
and  almost  confusing  to  us,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  the 
simple  metres  of  modern  poetry.     The  choral  songs  of  the 

1  Melos  originally  means  limb,  member,  and  then  comes  to  mean  air 
or  tune,  perhaps  because  of  the  regular  divisions  of  the  melody. 

2  Of  course  these  two  classes  were  not  absolutely  distinct,  for  some 
songs  intended  for  choruses  might  be  sung  by  one  voice  and  vice  versa. 

3  The  alternation  of  hexameter  and  "  pentameter  "  in  elegiac  poetry 
hardly  causes  a  break  in  the  continuous  flow  of  the  verse. 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY  91 

Greeks  were  sung  by  trained  choruses,  and  were  accom- 
panied with  instrumental  music  and  with  dancing.  The 
instruments  did  not  have  the  variety  nor  the  power  of 
modern  orchestras,  but  the  greater  variety  of  rhythm  and 
metre,  as  well  as  the  use  of  the  different  modes,  must  have 
given  to  the  performance  Ox  such  a  chorus  a  quality  differ- 
ent from  anything  known  in  modern  times,  and  perhaps 
not  inferior  in  effect  to  the  harmonies  produced  by  our 
more  powerful  and  varied  instruments.  To  appreciate  the 
beauty  of  Greek  lyric  poetry  in  its  close  relation  to  music 
required  careful  training,  but  music  was  always  one  of  the 
most  important  parts  of  the  education  of  Greek  yquth.  It 
is  practically  impossible  for  us  to  give  in  English  any  idea 
of  the  metrical  qualities  of  the  more  elaborate  Greek 
poetry,  and  it  requires  long  andTcareful  study  to  appreciate 
them  in  the  original  Greek.  Moreover,  the  music  is  lost, 
except  as  a  few  fragments  have  come  down  to  us,  and  the 
dancing  is  irrevocably  gone.  We  can  therefore  gain  at  best 
only  an  imperfect  idea  of  the  effect  produced  by  the  per- 
formance of  an  elaborate  choral  ode. 

The  monodic  melic  poetry  is  easier  for  us  to  understand 
in  all  its  aspects.  Such  songs  were  expressions  of  the  feel- 
ings or  emotions  of  one  person,  and  were  to  be 
Doetry10  sung  by  one  person  to  the  accompaniment  of 

one  instrument,  usually  a  lyre  played  by  the 
singer  himself.  It  is  natural  that  this  poetry  should  be 
simple.  As  a  rule,  the  stanzas  of  monodic  Greek  poems  con- 
sist of  four  or  five  lines,  each  line  being  itself  comparatively 
short.  Most  of  the  poems  are  in  logacedic  verse — that  is  to 
say,  in  verse  made  up  of  trochees  and  dactyls,  in  which  the 
dactyls  are  sung  in  the  time  of  trochees.  The  name  loga- 
cedic means  "prose-song,"  and  seems  to  imply  that  this 
kind  of  verse  was  less  different  from  prose  than  other 
verses. 

The  island  of  Lesbos,  which  had  been  the  birthplace  of 
Terpander,  was  also  the  home  of  the  two  great  melic  poets 


92  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Alcseus  and  Sappho.  It  is  probable  that  the  progress  of 
music  under  Terpander  and  his  followers  had  something  to 
Music  and  do  w^h  the  rise  of  monodic  melic  poetry  at 
song-  at  Lesbos,  but  how  close  the  connection  was  can 

Lesbos.  no^  be  ascertained.     The  nome  was  monodic, 

and  much  of  Terpander 's  inventive  ability  was  applied  to 
the  perfecting  of  the  nome.  That  may  possibly  indicate 
that  monodic  song  was  popular  at  Lesbos  even  before  Ter- 
pander, and  that  Alcaeus  was  not  the  first  who  attained 
merit  as  a  poet  of  monodic  verses,  but  only  the  first  whose 
work  was  widely  appreciated  and  preserved  to  posterity. 

Alca^us  was  a  member  of  a  noble  family  at  Mytilene,  in 
Lesbps.  The  exact  date  of  his  birth  is  unknown,  but  he 
was  a  contemporary  of  Pittacus,  the  wise  law- 
giver of  Mytilene,  and  took  part  in  a  war  with 
Athens  for  the  possession  of  Sigeium,  in  which  he  lost  his 
shield,  if  his  confession  of  cowardice  is  not  a  mere  imita- 
tion of  Archilochus  (see  p.  81).  This  war  is  not  dated 
with  certainty,  but  it  can  not  have  been  much  earlier  or 
later  than  600  B.  c.  It  is  probable  that  Alcagus  was  born 
some  years  before  600  B.  p.  and  lived  until  570  or  there- 
abouts. In  those  days  the  noble  families  of  Mytilene  were 
losing  their  power,  apparently  through  inner  dissension, 
which  enabled  the  common  people  to  assert  themselves. 
The  common  people  lacked  the  ability  to  establish  a  per- 
manent democracy,  and  their  weakness  gave  opportunities 
for  usurpers,  or  "  tyrants,"  as  the  Greeks  called  them,  to 
seize  the  chief  power  in  the  state.  The  tyrants  were  then 
generally  put  down  by  assassination.  One  of  these  tyrants, 
Melanchrus,  was  killed,  it  is  said,  by  Pittacus  and  the 
brother  of  Alcseus,  Antimenidas.  He  was  soon  followed, 
however,  by  another  tyrant,  Myrsilus.  It  was  probably  at 
'this  time  that  Alcaeus,  in  common  with  his  brother,  with 
Sappho,  and  many  other  aristocrats,  was  banished  from 
Mytilene.  He  traveled  in  various  regions  and  was  during 
a  part  of  the  time  a  soldier  in  the  army  of  the  Egyptian 


MONODIC  AND   CHORAL  POETRY  93 

Pharaoh,  while  Antimenidas  entered  the  service  of  King 
Nebuchadnezzar  of  Assyria  (604-562  b.  a).  Myrsilus  was 
overthrown  and  killed  by  Pittacus  and  the  moderate  party, 
but  Alcaeus  was  still  in  the  opposition  and  was  again  ban- 
ished with  his  brother. 

There  were  several  tyrants  at  Mytilene,  but  whether 
they  came  after  Myrsilus  or  between  Melanchrus  and  Myr- 
silus is  not  clear.  At  any  rate,  Alcaeus  and  his  brother 
engaged  in  a  plot  to  overthrow  a  government  which  existed 
after  the  death  of  Myrsilus,  but  succeeded  only  in  bringing 
things  to  such  a  pass  that  Pittacus  was  made  absolute  ruler 
of  Mytilene,  with  the  title  of  ^Esymnetes,  possessing  quite 
as  much  power  as  any  of  the  tyrants  had  had,  and  charged 
by  the  people  to  use  his  power  fofthe  suppression  of  fac- 
tion and  disorder,  especially  such  as  aimed  at  the  establish- 
ment of  the  rule  of  the  nobles.  Such  a  government  as  that 
of  Pittacus  was  quite  as /displeasing  to  Alcaeus  as  the  gov- 
ernments of  the  tyrants  had  been,  and  the  irreconcilable 
aristocrat  continued  to  live  in  exile  and  to  do  what  he  could 
to  overthrow  Pittacus.  "  With  loud  praises,"  he  says,  "  the 
multitude  made  the  low-born  Pittacus  tyrant  of  the  factious 
and  luckless  city."  After  holding  his  office  for  ten  years 
Pittacus  retired  to  private  life.  Whether  Alcaeus  returned 
to  Mytilene  at  this  time,  or  was  pardoned  and  allowed  to 
return  by  Pittacus  at  some  earlier  period,  or  remained  in 
exile,  is  not  certain.  It  is  generally  believed  that  he  re- 
turned at  the  retirement  of  Pittacus,  if  not  before.  In  one 
of  his  poems  he  speaks  of  himself  as  old,  so  that  we  may 
assume  that  he  passed  safely  through  the  vicissitudes  of  his 
career  of  political  strife,  war,  and  exile,  and  died  an  old 
man,  probably  in  his  native  place. 

Alcaeus  was  an  intense  partisan,  a  sincere  patriot,  but  a 
patriot  of  the  narrowldnd,  who  sees  the  salvation  of  his 
country  only  in  his  own  party,  and  even  in  the  particular 
division  of  his  party  to  which  he  belongs.  The  political 
poems  of  Solon  breathe  a  calm  and  dignified  spirit— the 


94  GBEEK  LITERATURE 

spirit  of  a  man  above  all  factional  strife,  of  a  man  who  can 
gain  and  keep  the  respect  and  confidence  of  all  classes  by 

his  wisdom,  good  judgment,  and  justice.  The 
The  political  political  poems  of  Alcaeus  express  the  spirit  of 
Aicseus.  faction.     "  Now  is  the  time  to  drink,  to  drink 

with  all  one's  might,  for  Myrsilus  is  dead,"1 
are  the  words  in  which  he  exults  over  the  fall  of  the  tyrant. 
His  expression  about  Pittacus  has  already  been  quoted. 
Melanchrus  he  calls  a  disgrace  to  the  city.  But  not  all  of 
the  fragments  of  the  political  songs  of  Alcaeus  show  a  ran- 
corous spirit.  The  longest  describes  the  room  of  a  warrior 
about  to  take  part  in  the  strife  : 

The  great  hall  gleams  with  bronze ;  and  all  the  room  is  adorned 
for  Ares  with  shining  helmets,  down  from  which  nod  white  horse- 
hair plumes,  the  glory  of  men's  heads ;  and  shining  brazen  greaves 
hang  round  on  pegs,  protections  against  mighty  missiles ;  and  new 
breastplates  of  linen ;  and  hollow  shields  thrown  down,  and  Chal- 
cidian  swords,  and  besides  many  belts  and  kilts.  These  we  can  not 
forget,  since  once  we  have  entered  upon  this  task. 

This  description  is  brilliant  and  exact,  giving  the 
hearer  a  vivid  impression  of  the  gleam  of  bronze  and  a 
suggestion  of  the  warlike  spirit  which  lends  the  bronze  its 
power  and  its  charm.  Yet  with  all  its  flashing  direct- 
ness, this  fragment  seems  a  little  theatrical,  for  it  describes 
the  accessories  of  the  warrior,  not  the  warrior  himself  nor 
the  spirit  within  him.  It  may  be  that  if  we  had  the  whole 
poem,  of  which  this  is  a  part,  we  should  feel  the  martial 
spirit  which  the  ancient  critics  admired  in  the  poems  of 
Alcaeus,  but  in  its  present  mutilated  condition  the  frag- 
ment is  excellent  as  vivid  and  terse  description,  but  is  not 
warlike.     Another  fragment  describes  the  ship  of  state2 

1  Horace,  Od.  I,  xxxvii,  imitates  the  beginning  of  this  poem, 
only  two  lines  of  which  remain.  Horace's  ode  celebrates  the  death  of 
Cleopatra,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  imitation  of  AlcaBus  is  not  confined 
to  the  first  line. 

2  Imitated  in  part  at  least  by  Horace,  Od.  I,  xiv.  The  comparison 
of  the  state  with  a  ship  seems  to  be  original  with  Alcasus. 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY  9i> 

tossed  by  the  winds ;  and  in  this  again  the  description  is 
clear,  terse,  and  vivid. 

Several  fragments  exist  of  the  conxyrial  songs  of  Al- 
caeus. These  are  for  the  most  part  of  the  class  called 
scolia,  a  name  derived  from  the  adjective  o-koAios,  "  crooked," 
m    ,.  but  not  vet  satisfactorily  explained.     It  is  per- 

SCOlla"  1,  i.  1     i.  n       .       -i 

naps  most  usual  to  say  that  the  songs  were 
called  "  crooked  "  because  they  were  sung  in  turn  by  the 
guests,  who  sang  not  in  the  order  in  which  they  sat,  but  in 
some  irregular  or  zigzag  order.  One  of  the  fragments  is 
translated  by  Mr.  Symonds  as  follows  : 

^    The  rain  of  Zeus  descends,  and  from  high  heaven 

A  storm  is  driven : 
And  on  the  running;  water^brooks  the  cold 

Lays  icy  hold 
Then  up !  beat  do-jsvn  the  winter ;  make  the  fire 

Blaze  high  and  higher ; 
Mix  wine  as  sweet  as  honey  of  the  bee 

Abundantly ; 
Then  drink  with  comfortable  wool  around 

Your  temples  bound. 
We  must  not  yield  our  hearts  to  woe,  nor  wear 

With  wasting  care ; 
For  grief  will  profit  us  no  whit,  my  friend, 

Nor  nothing  mend ; 
I    But  this  is  our  best  medicine,  with  wine  fraught    • 

To  cast  out  thought. 

Horace  imitated  this  poem  in  the  ninth  ode  of  his  first 

book,  and  his  eighteenth  ode  is  also  an  imitation  of  a  poem 

of  Alcaeus,  of  which,  unfortunately,  little  is  left.    If  among 

our  comparatively  few  fragments  there  are  so  many  which 

served  as  models  for  Horace,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 

many  of  the  odes  are  imitations  of  lost  poems  by  Alcaeus. 

rThis  imitation  by  Horace  is  the  best  proof  we  have  that 

* Alcaeus  was  really  a  great  poet.     His  style  is  direct  and 

|  clear,  and  his  words  express  his  own  straightforward,  ardent 

1  character.     But  in  the  extant  fragments  there  is  little  that 


96  GREEK  LITERATURE 

indicates  a  great  nature  or  a  great  poet.  The  fragments  of 
hymns  are  less  satisfactory  on  the  whole  than  those  of  the 
political,  convivial,  or  love  poems.  Yet  the  universal  ad- 
miration of  the  ancients  and  the  imitation  of  Horace  must 
not  be  lightly  passed  over.  Our  extant  fragments  number, 
to  be  sure,  over  one  hundred  and  fifty,  but  most  of  these 
are  short,  and  many  consist  of  only  one  word.  We  have, 
therefore,  no  right  to  refuse  to  Alcaeus  the  position  of  a 
great  poet,  because  the  extant  fragments  do  not  prove  him 

to  be  one.  They  do  show  great  merit  in  some 
Alcaeus  as         ways,  as  has  been  pointed  out  above,  and  we 

must  imagine  that  among  the  lost  poems, 
which  amounted  in  all  to  at  leastu.tgn  books,  were  many 
not  inferior  at  any  rate  to  the  best  of  the  existing  frag- 
ments. The  dialect  of  Alcaeus,  as  well  as  of  Sappho,  is  the 
iEolic  dialect  of  Lesbos.  His  metres  are  simple,  and  the 
four-lined  stanza  called  Alcaic,  much  used  by  Horace,  was 
first  made  popular,  even  if  not  actually  invented,  by  him. 

Sappho,  or,  as  she  would  have  called  herself  in  her  na- 
tive dialect,  Psappha,  was  a  countrywoman  and  contempo- 
rary of  Alcaeus.  She  was  probably  born  at  Eresus,  but 
lived  habitually  at  Mytilene,  the  most  important  city  of 

Lesbos.     The  exact  period  of  her  life  can  not 

be  determined,  but  she  must  have  lived  in  the 
|  early  part  of  the  sixth  century.  Alcaeus  addressed  a  poem 
to  her,  in  which  he  said  :  "  Violet-tressed,  chaste,  sweetly 
smiling  Sappho,  I  wish  to  say  something,  but  shame  hinders 
me  " ;  to  which  Sappho  replied :  "  If  you  had  a  desire  for 
noble  and  good  things,  and  your  tongue  did  not  urge  you 
to  say  something  bad,  shame  would  not  possess  your  eyes, 
but  you  would  speak  of  what  is  right."  But  this  proves 
only  that  Sappho  and  Alcaeus  were  alive  at  the  same  time, 
not  that  Sappho  was  the  younger  of  the  two,  nor  even  that 
Alcaeus  was  seriously  in  love  with  her. 

Herodotus  says  that  Sappho  was  the  daughter  of  Sca- 
mandronymus,  and  Suidas  tells  us  that  her  mother's  name 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY  97 

was  Clei's,  that  she  was  married  to  a  wealthy  citizen  of 
Andrus,  named  Cercylas  or  Cercolas,  and  had  a  daughter 
named  Clei's,  after  her  grandmother.  The  family  of  Sap- 
pllP  was  noble,  and  it  was  probably  for  that  reason  that  she 
was  sent  into  banisjbment,  in  the  course  of  which  she  is  said 
to  have  visited  Sicily.  She  probably  returned  to  Lesbos 
when  Pittacus  granted  amnesty  to  political  exiles.  When 
and  how  she  died  is  unknown.  According  to  a  popular 
legend,  she  was  in  love  with  a  youth  named  Phaon,  andj 
when  her  advances  were  repulsed,  she  threw  herself  intoj 
the  sea  from  the  Leucadian  rock,  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,\ 
hundreds  of  miles  from  Lesbos.  The  legendary  character! 
of  this  tale  is  evident.  The  Leujcadian  rock  is  a  promon- 
tory, from  which  at  stated  tinies  condemned  criminals  were 
thrown  to  their  death,  wrfcn  special  rites  of  expiation.  In 
one  of  his  poems  Anacreon  speaks  of  plunging  from  the 
Leucadian  rock  drunk  with  love.  Some  similar  expression 
in  one  of  Sappho's  love-songs  addressed  to  Phaon  may  have 
given  rise  to  the  legend  that  she  actually  destroyed  herself 
in  the  way  indicated.  As  for  Phaon,  we  do  not  know 
whether  he  really  existed  and  was  beloved  by  Sappho,  or 
was  a  mythical  person  like  Adonis  (of  whom  Sappho  also 
sung),  or  whether  Sappho  merely  used  the  name  of  Phaon 
in  her  poems,  as  other  poets  have  addressed  their  sonnets 
to  imaginary  persons. 

The  story  of  Sappho's  suicide,  and  with  it  perhaps  the 

whole  story  of  her  love  for  Phaon,  is  probably  an  invention 

based  upon  certain  expressions  in  her  poems. 

oharacter  The  Same  ori&in  musfc  be  assigne(i  to  tne  stories 

of  her  various  love-affairs  with  Anacreon,  Al- 
caeus,  and  others,  and  also  to  the  tales  of  her  violent  and 
immoral  passion  for  some  of  her  female  friends  and  pupils, 
jlf  all  the  tales  are  to  be  believed,  Sappho's  character  was 
jbad  in  the  extreme.  If  the  indications  derived  from  her 
poems  are  to  be  altogether  rejected,  we  know  nothing  about 
her  personality.     A  middle  course  is  here — as  usual — the 


98  GREEK  LITERATURE 

best.     Sappho  is,  more  than  aTiy^nthgr  ftrftp.k  po^  a  singer 
ofjoyfi-sorigs.     She  sings  of  the  joys  of  love  and  of  its  pains, 
of  the  beauty  of  young  men  and  of  maidens ;  she  composes 
hymns  to  the  goddess  of  lovg,  Aphrodite,  and  epithalamia 
or  bridal  processional  songs  for  the~Cesbian  brides.     Her 
;  poetry  is  sweet,  but  full  of  fire,  expressing  the  passion  as 
i  well  as  the  tenderness  of  love.     It  is  only  natural  and  rea- 
sonable to   suppose  that  she  who  could  express  passion 
could  also  feel  it,  and  that  her  feelings,  little  restrained 
by  the  customs  of  her  time  and  native  place,  caused  her  to 
err  and  perhaps  to  commit  excesses.     Had  she  been  a  per- 
son of  austere  virtue,  the  contradiction  between  her  verses 
and  her  life  would  have  made  her  virtue  memorable  and 
caused  it  to  be  mentioned  by  later  writers.     But  she  was 
Y  honored  at  Mytilene,  and  her  likeness  adorned  the  coins  of 
I  her  native  Eresus.     That  seems  to  prove  that  she  was  not 
inferior  to  other  Lesbian  women  in  general  reputation,  and 
she  certainly  surpassed  them  all  in  genius. 

The  poems  of  Sappho  formed  in  ancient  times  nine 
books.     There  remain  for  us  about  one  hundred  and  sev- 
enty fragments,  most  of  which  are  brief  and 
T)oems°  8  unsatisfactory.     Fortunately,  two  odes  are  pre- 

served almost  entire,  one  by  Dionysius  of  Hali- 
carnassus,  the  other  by  Longinus.1  Besides  songs,  there 
were  epithalamia,  hymns,  and  perhaps  elegies.  Sappho's 
verse  is  passionate,  but  sweet,  her  language  simple  and 
bold,  but  full  of  refinement.  The  technical  excellence  of 
her  verse  is,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  extant  frag- 
ments, unsurpassed.  The  Sapphic  stanza,  so  called  because 
Sappho  was  said  to  have  invented  it,  is  charming  in  its 
simple  and  dignified  beauty.     This  is  the  metre 2  of  the  f ol- 

1  Or  rather  by  the  unknown  author  of  a  rhetorical  treatise,  irtpi 
fyovs,  On  Sublimity  (of  literary  style),  attributed  to  Longinus. 

2  Translation  by  Prof.  William  Hyde  Appleton.  This  metre  is 
used  by  Horace  in  several  odes,  e.  g.,  I,  ii,  x,  xii,  xx,  xxii,  xxv,  xxx, 
xxxii,  xxxviii. 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY  99 

lowing  hymn  to  Aphrodite,  translated  so  as  to  show  the 
rhythm  of  the  original : 

1  Throned  in  splendor,  immortal  Aphrodite ! 
Child  of  Zeus,  enchantress,  I  implore  thee, 
Slay  me  not  in  this  distress  and  anguish, 
Lady  of  beauty. 

Hither  come  as  once  before  thou  earnest, 
When  from  afar  thou  heardst  my  voice  lamenting, 
Heardst  and  earnest,  leaving  thy  glorious  father's 
Palace  golden, 

Yoking  thy  chariot.     F&irtiheriioves that  bore  thee  ; 
Swift  to  the  darksome/earth  their  course  directing, 
Waving  their  thici^wings  from  the  highest  heaven 
Down  through  the  ether. 

Quickly  they  came.     Then  thou,  O  blessed  goddess, 
All  in  smiling  wreathed  thy  face  immortal, 
Badest  me  tell  thee  the  cause  of  all  my  suffering, 
Why  now  I  called  thee ; 

What  for  my  maddened  heart  I  most  was  longing. 
"  Whom,"  thou  criest,  "dost  wish  that  sweet  Persuasion 
Now  win  over  and  lead  to  thy  love,  my  Sappho? 
Who  is  it  wrongs  thee?  " 

For  though  now  he  flies,  he  soon  shall  follow, 
Soon  shall  be  giving  gifts  who  now  rejects  them. 
Even  though  now  he  love  not,  soon  shall  he  love  thee, 
Even  though  thou  wouldst  not. 

Come  then  now,  dear  goddess,  and  release  me 

From  my  anguish.     All  my  heart's  desiring 
i    Grant  thou  now.     Now  too  again  as  aforetime, 
I    Be  thou  my  ally. 

The  other  ode  preserved  entire  is  in  the  same  metre  as 
the  first.  It  has  been  translated  into  English  rhymed  verse 
as  follows :  ' 

1  Translation  by  Ambrose  Philips.  This  poem  is  imitated  by  The- 
ocritus, Idyl,  ii,  104  if.,  and  Catullus,  Carm,  li. 


100  GREEK  LITERATURE 

I   Blest  as  the  immortal  gods  is  he, 
The  youth  who  fondly  sits  by  thee, 
And  hears  and-  sees  thee,  all  the  while, 
Softly  speak  and  sweetly  smile. 

'Twas  this  deprived  my  soul  of  rest, 
And  raised  such  tumults  in  my  breast; 
For,  while  I  gazed,  in  transport  tossed, 
My  breath  was  gone,  my  voice  was  lost; 

My  bosom  glowed ;  the  subtle  flame 
Ran  quick  through  all  my  vital  frame ; 
O'er  my  dim  eyes  a  darkness  hung ; 
My  ears  with  hollow  murmurs  rung ; 

In  dewy  damps  my  limbs  were  chilled ; 
My  blood  with  gentle  horrors  thrilled ; 
My  feeble  pulse  forgot  to  play; 
I    I  fainted,  sunk,  and  died  away. 

A  short,  fragmentary  invocation  of  evening  is  remarkable 
for  its  simplicity  and  sweetness  :  \ 

i  O  Evening,  thou  who  bringest  everything 

/      That  the  bright,  glaring  day  has  scattered  wide, 

The  sheep  thou  bringest,  and  thou  bring'st  the  goat; 

)    The  child  thou  bringest  to  his  mother's  side. 

Anacreon,  the  third  of  the  great  writers  of  monodic 

melic  verafi,  was  born  at  Teo£,  one  of  the  twelve  cities  of 

the   Ionic    confederacy   of   Asia  Minor.      His 

— -  '  father's  name  was  Scythinus.  The  date  of 
Anacreon's  birth  is  unknown,  but  the  brilliant  period  of 
his  life  was  in  the  second  half  of  the  sixth  century.  Strabo 
tells  us  that  in  Anacreon's  time  the  inhabitants  of  Teos  left 
their  city  to  found  Abdera,  on  the  coast  of  Thrace.  Herod- 
otus says  this  event  took  place  in  consequence  of  the  Per- 
sian attack  upon  Asia  Minor  under  Harpagus,  which  was  in 
545  b.  c.  Anacreon  can  not  have  lived  long  at  Abdera,  but 
must  soon  have  gone  to  the  court  of  Polycrates,  who  was 


/ 


ANACREON. 

From  a  statue  in  the  Ny-Carlsberg  Museum,  Copenhagen. 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL*  POETRY  '  Ml 

tyrant  of  Samos  at  least  ten  years,  ending  in  522  b.  c. 
Strabo  says  Anacreon's  poems  are  full  of  the  name  of  Poly- 
crates,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  the  poet  was  at  Samos 
for  some  years,  if  not  throughout  the  entire  period  of  the 
tyranny.  He  was  at  Samos  when  Poly  crates  was  killed,  but 
went  soon  after  to  Athens,  whexe-Sippias  and  Hipparchus 
had  been  for  five  years^m  possession  of  the  power  left 
them  by  their  father,  Pisistratus.  Hipparchus  was  a  lover 
of  poetry,  music,  and  art,  and  is  said  to  have  sent  a  galley 
to  bring  Anacreon  to  his  court.  At  Athens,  Anacreon  was 
the  friend  not  only  of  Hipparchus,  but  also  of  other  promi- 
nent men,  among  them  Xanthippus,  the  father  of  Pericles. 
Hipparchus  was  murdered  in  514,  but  whether  Anacreon 
was  at  Athens  at  the  time  is  not  known.  He  may  have 
stayed  at  Athens  even  after  the  death  of  Hipparchus,  for 
the  fact  that  an  epigram  preserved  under  his  name  was 
intended  for  an  offering  by  a  Thessalian  chief,  Echecratides, 
does  not  prove  that  Anacreon  went  to  live  in  Thessaly. 
The  date  of  the  poet's  death  is  unknown,  though  as  he  is 
said  to  have  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty-five  years,  his  death 
probably  took  place  at  some  time  after  500  b.  c.  An  epi- 
gram attributed  to  Simonides  mentions  his  tomb  at  Teos, 
but  the  attribution  is  probably  not  correct,  and  the  epigram 
therefore  proves  nothing  more  than  that  at  some  later  time 
it  was  believed  that  Anacreon's  tomb  was  in  his  native 
town.  The  story  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  Teos  in  494 
is  probably  only  a  repetition  of  the  story  of  the  migration 
in  545. 

In  one  or  two  places  Anacreon  speaks  of  having  been 
a  soldier,. and  he  imitates  Archilochus  and  Alcaeus  so  far 
as  to  say  that  he  threw  away  his  shield,  but  his  poems  as 
a  whole  are  not  those  of  a  warlike  or  soldierly  man.  He 
was  a  court  poet,  a  lover  of  soft  pleasures,  of  luxurious 
surroundings,  good  comnany,  good  food,  and  good  wine. 
Archilochus  was  a  roving  warrior,  fighting  for  no  principle, 
to  be  sure,  but  too  independent  to  live  on  the  bounty  of 


102  GREEK  LITERATURE 

any  ruler.  Alcaeus  was  a  fierce  partisan  in  politics,  a  lover 
of  liberty,  at  least  for  himself  and  his  faction,  outspoken 
and  independent.  Even  Sappho,  though  a  woman,  had 
been  forced  into  exile  by  the  tyrants  of  her  native  island. 
But  Anacreon  was  the  friend  of  Polycrates  and  of  Hippar- 
chus.  He  was  not  too  independent  to  be  agreeable  to  the 
wealthy  rulers  and  their  friends,  who  gave  him  the  comforts 
he  loved  in  return  for  the  poems  which  praised  their  acts 
or  their  characters,  or  at  least  added  a  delicate  and  refined 
pleasure  to  their  banquets.  In  Anacreon's  poetry  there  is 
np_  great  power,  but  there  is  much,  grace,  elegance,  and 
brilliancy.  Though  several  of  the  extant  fragments  are 
addressed  to  deities,  there  is  no  genuine  religious  feeling, 
but  rather  here,  as  elsewhere,  a  graceful,  almost  playful  ease 
of  expression.  The  impression  of  ease  is  enhanced  by  Anac- 
reon's use  of  a  simple  and  elegant  Ionic  dialect  cast  in 
verses  of  great  variety,  but  for  the  most  part  short  and  far 
from  complicated.  His  versification  resembles  that  of 
Alcaeus  and  Sappho,  but  he  avoids  the  Sapphic  and  Alcaic 
stanzas.     Like  most  of  the  Greek  poets,  Anac- 

e  poems        reon  wrote  elegiac  verses,  but  these  differ  little 
of  Anacreon.      .  ~°  .  ' 

in  character  from  his  odes.     The  charm  of  his 

poetry  is  inseparable  from  his  language,  but  some  of  its 

qualities  may  be  recognized  even  in  a  translation,  as,  for 

instance,  of  his  so-called  hymn  to  Dionysus  : 

O  Lord,  with  whom  the  conqueror  Eros  and  the  blue-eyed 
nymphs  and  blushing  Aphrodite  sport,  thou  who  wanderest  on  the 
peaks  of  the  high  mountains,  I  beseech  thee,  but  do  thou  come  pro- 
pitious to  me,  and  hearken  graciously  to  my  prayer.  To  Cleobulus 
be  a  good  counselor,  that  he  accept  my  love,  O  Dionysus. 

Again  he  sings  to  a  beloved  boy : 

O  boy  with  maiden  glances,  maiden  grace, 
I  yearn  for  thee,  who  heedest  not  my  pains, 

Nor  knowest  that  as  I  run  through  life's  rac< 
Thou  art  the  charioteer  who  holds  the  reins. 


MONODIC  AND  CHORAL  POETRY  103 

Elsewhere  he  sings  of  the  joys  of  wine  and  pleasure,  and 
also  of  the  troubles  of  old  age  which  takes  away  the  charm 
and  the  pleasures  of  youth. 

Of  the  poems  of  Anacreon,  which  formed  in  the  Alex- 
andrian period  five  bookSj_only^ahout  one  hundred  and 
seventy  fragments  aje-^reserved,  and  of  these  many  consist 
of  but  one  line  or  less.  But  his  light  and  pleasing  verse 
was  deservedly  popular  throughout  antiquity,  and  called 
forth  numerous  imitations.  A  collection  of  these  imita- 
tions, Anacreontics  as  they  are  called,  is  pre- 
served in  the  "anthology  of  Cephalas,  dating 
from  the  eleventh  century  after  Christ.  There  are  about 
sixty  pieces,  each  composed  of  a  system  of  short  verses, 
Ionic  dimeters  or  catalectic  iambic  dimeters — i.  e.,  dime- 
ters lacking  a  syllable  at  the  end.  These  are  of  vari- 
ous merit  and  of  various  dates.  For  many  years  they  were 
regarded  as  the  genuine  work  of  Anacreon,  and  refer- 
ences to  Anacreon  in  modern  literature  are  for  the  most 
part  references  to  these  poems.  It  is  now  recognized,  how- 
ever, that  they  are  very  much  later  work  in  imitation  of 
Anacreon.  Some  of  them  are  really  beautiful,  though 
none  shows  any  great  power,  but  rather  an  attractive  and 
often  playful  sweetness.  They  tell  of  love  among  roses, 
of  Love  who  comes  to  the  singer  and  begs  for  shelter 
on  a  stormy  night,  only  to  reward  his  host  by  fixing 
an  arrow  in  his  heart,  of  the  pleasures  of  wine,  of  the 
charms  of  the  beloved.  Their  general  character  is  indi- 
cated in  the  lines : 

You  sing  the  Theban  story, 

Some  sing  of  Phrygian  deeds ; 
I  sing  my  own  destruction. 

I  was  not  lost  by  steeds 
Nor  arm6d  host  nor  navy ; 

Another  kind  of  lance 
Smote  all  my  heart  asunder — 

A  soft  eye's  burning  glance. 


104  GREEK  LITERATURE 

In  spite  of  his  Ionic  dialect,  Anacreon  is  properly  classed 
with  the  two  Lesbian  poets  Alcaeus  and  Sappho,  being,  like 
them,  a  singer  of  short  and  simple  songs  to  be  accompanied 
by  the  lyre.  This  kind  of  monodic- poetry  has  found  many 
admirers  at  all  times,  but  the  progress  of  Greek  poetry  led 
in  another  direction,  and  these  three  poets  had  no  imme- 
diate successors. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CHORAL    LYRIC    POETRY 

Thaletas,  about  660-600  b.  c— Alcman,  about  650-600  b.  c.  or  a  little 
later— Arion,  640  (?)-570  (?)  b.  c— Stesichorus,  about  635-555  b.  c— 
Ibycus,  about  590-520  b.  c. 

The  development  of  choral  poetry  in  Greece  is  due  in 
great  measure  to  the  peculiar  character  of  Greek  civic  life. 
Monodic  Alcseus,  Sappho,  and  Anacreon,  as  well  as  the 

poetry  elegiac  poets,  expressed  their  individual  senti- 

mdividuai.  ments  in  beautiful  verse,  with  all  the  grace 
and  all  the  power  to  which  each  individual  poet  could 
attain.  The  works  of  these  poets  are  charming  in  their 
sweetness,  their  simplicity,  their  straightforward  honesty 
of  workmanship,  their  suggestive  imagery,  their  diction, 
and  their  versification,  but  they  differ  from  the  poetry  of 
other  peoples  in  details  or  in  special  qualities  rather  than 
in  their  whole  nature  and  essence.  This  is  because  the  in- 
dividual is  essentially  the  same  at  all  times  and  in  all  places, 
however  he  may  be  influenced  in  details  and  in  special 
directions  by  his  surroundings.  The  individual  utterances 
of  an  Alcaeus  or  a  Sappho  are  those  of  a  man  or  a  woman, 
and  the  fact  that  the  man  or  woman  is  a  Greek  of  Lesbos 
is  a  matter  of  importance,  to  be  sure,  but  of  secondary 
importance  only. 

But  Greek  choral  lyric  poetry  is  the  expression  not  of 
the  individual,  but  rather  of  the  community.  The  poet 
whose  verses  are  sung  by  the  whole  people  of  his  native 
city  as  they  approach  the  shrines  of  the  gods,  or  by  the 

105 


106  GREEK  LITERATURE 

youths  or  maidens  as  they  celebrate  their  city's  festivals 
with  sacred  dances,  is  no  longer  a  mere  individual,  but  is 
the  mouthpiece  of  the  community  and  its  life.  The  choral 
poetry  of  the  Greeks  was  the  natural  outgrowth 
the  expres-  an(^  the  most  perfect  literary  expression  of  the 
sion  of  the  civic  life  of  Greece,  in  which  every  citizen  was 
hfe  of  the  personally  acquainted  with  every  other  on  ac- 
commum  y.  counjj  0f  ^he  small  size  of  the  cities,  while  at 
the  same  time  the  life  of  the  individual  was  regulated  by 
ancient  customs,  inherited  in  most  cases  from  mythical 
times,  or  by  carefully  devised  and  elaborate  laws — a  civic 
life  in  which  patriotism  was  intense,  but  limited  to  one 
little  city,  not  extended  to  embrace  a  mighty  empire  or  a 
union  of  great  states ;  a  life  in  which  every  public  act  of 
the  state  affected  each  citizen,  so  that  each  citizen  was  per- 
sonally interested  in  the  celebration  of  every  anniversary 
and  sacred  day.  This  close  connection  of  private  life  with 
the  life  of  the  city  had  a  powerful  effect  upon  the  Greek 
mind,  giving  to  Greek  art  and  to  Greek  literature  a  public, 
as  it  were,  a  municipal  character,  without  depriving  it  of 
freshness  or  independence.  But  the  forms  of  poetry  which 
best  express  the  strictly  personal  feelings  of  the  poet  are 
not  those  best  adapted  to  the  use  of  the  community.  The 
public  ceremonies  and  festivals  demand  the  sound  of  many 
voices  and  the  rhythmic  motion  of  many  feet.  There 
had  no  doubt  been  choral  songs  from  early  times.  The 
bride  had  been  escorted  to  her  new  home  with  song  and 
dance,  the  gods  had  been  praised  by  many  voices  chanting 
in  unison,  and  more  than  one  voice  at  a  time  had  raised 
the  lament  for  the  dead  or  shouted  the  song  of  victory. 
But  these  early  songs  were  rude,  perhaps  mere  unmetrical 
chants  sung  to  uncertain  airs.  They  were  the  foundation 
upon  which  choral  poetry  was  built  up,  the  seed  from 
which  choral  poetry  sprang,  not  real  choral  poetry.  With 
the  development  of  music,  which  came  at  the  same  time 
with  great  advances  toward  well-ordered  civic  life,  choral 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  107 

poetry  began  to  grow  and  to  become  the  most  elaborate  and 
the  most  perfectly  Greek  variety  of  Greek  literature. 

There  were  various  kinds  of  choral  songs,  distinguished 
one  from  another  b^the  purpose^or^which  they  were  in- 
tended and  the  manner  in  which  they  were 

fhwalplems.  Performed-  The  $<***>  was  originally  a  song 
in  honor  of  the  god  Paean  (identified  with 
Apollo)  and  later  in  honor  of  any  god.  It  was  performed 
by  a  chorus  of  men,  who  danced  a  dignified  dance.  It  was 
also  sung  on  the  march  before  or  after  a  battle.  Another 
variety  of  paean  was  sung  at  banquets  without  dancing. 
The  prosodion  was  a  processional  or  marching  hymn,  to 
be  sung  as  the  singers  approached  the  temples  or  altars  of 
the  gods.  The  hyporcheme  was  similar  to  the  paean,  but 
the  accompanying  dance  was  wilder  and  less  dignified, 
while  the  music  was  naturally  faster  and  probably  more 
varied.  The  partlienion  was  a  song  for  a  chorus  of  girls, 
who  either  sang  and  danced  themselves  or  danced  to  the 
singing  of  others.  This  kind  of  chorus  was  especially  noted 
at  Sparta.  Hymns  were  songs  in  honor  of  gods  or  heroes, 
though  the  word  was  sometimes  carelessly  applied  to  songs 
in  honor  of  men.  Encomia  were  songs  in  honor  of  men, 
originally  sung  at  banquets.  A  kind  of  song  which 
attained  great  excellence  and  importance  is  the  epinician 
ode,  or  song  in  honor  of  victors  in  the  public  games  held  at 
Olympia,  Delphi,  and  elsewhere.  There  are  numerous 
other  names  applied  to  subdivisions  of  the  classes  men- 
tioned, and  all  were  more  or  less  modified  so  that  they  were 
not  always  clearly  distinguished.  All  of  these  were  per- 
formed by  square  or  parallel  choruses — that  is,  by  choruses 
arranged  in  parallel  lines.  The  dithyramb  was  performed 
by  a  chorus  arranged  in  a  circle — a  round  chorus.  All  the 
other  classes  were,  of  a  more  or  less  self-contained  and 
dignified  character,  the  hyporcheme  being  perhaps  the 
least  so,  but  the  dithyramb  was  violent  and  ecstatic.  It 
appears  to  have  been  of  Phrygian  origin,  and  was  a  song  in 


108  GREEK  LITERATURE 

honor  of  Dionysus,  god  of  wine.  It  became  popular  in 
those  places  where  grapes  were  cultivated  and  wine  was 
made,  and  reached  its  highest  development  in  Attica, 
where  it  led  to  the  creation  of  tragedy  and  was  at  the  same 
time  practised  as  a  distinct  form  of  art,  combining  music, 
poetry,  and  dancing  with  dramatic  elements. 

The  metres  of  these  various   classes  of  choral  poetry 
show  the  greatest  variety.     They  are,  generally  speaking, 

far  less  simple  than  those  of  monodic  verse; 
Choral  ^e  (jiy}sions^  called  strophes,  are  longer  and 

are  divided  into  periods  and  smaller  divisions 
called  sentences  or  cola.  The  feet  are  longer,  having  some- 
times as  many  as  five  syllables,  and  the  relation  between 
the  length  of  long  and  short  syllables  is  frequently  modi- 
fied by  lengthening  or  shortening  the  one  or  the  other  in 
pronunciation.  It  is  therefore  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate 
the  metrical  excellence  of  many  of  the  choral  odes.  They 
were  meant  to  be  sung  to  music  composed  especially  for 
them  by  the  poet,  and  the  music  fixed  the  time  or  rhythm 
quite  as  much  as  did  the  natural  quantity  of  the  syllables 
themselves.  According  to  Cicero,  the  ancients  themselves 
were  not  always  able  to  discover  the  metre  of  a  choral 
passage,  or  even  to  distinguish  it  from  prose,  without  the 
music.1  But  the  Greeks  loved  the  elaborate  combination 
of  music,  poetry,  and  dancing,  and  some  of  the  greatest  of 
their  poets  devoted  themselves,  especially  in  the  sixth  and 
the  first  half  of  the  fifth  centuries,  to  this  kind  of  composi- 
tion. The  Dorians  had  great  influence  upon  the  early 
development  of  choral  poetry,  and  the  Doric  dialect  was 
always  associated  with  it,  though  as  Athens  became  more 
and  more  the  centre  of  intellectual  life  the  Attic  dialect 
supplanted  the  Doric  in  great  measure  even  in  choral  poetry. 
It  never,  however,  entirely  drove  out  the  Doric  forms,  even 
in  the  choral  parts  of  the  Attic  tragedy. 

1  Cicero,  Orator,  183. 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  109 

Thaletas,  the  earliest  Greek  poet  who  composed  lasting 

poems  for  performance  by  a  chorus,  was  born  in  Crete, 

probably^at~~Grrrkyna,  not  far  from  the  besrin- 

Thaletas  .  ^^\ 

ning  of  the  seventn^century.  He  went  to 
Sparta,  perhaps  by  command  of  an  oracle,  about  the  time 
when  the  Spartans,  by  bringing  the  first  Messenian  War  to 
a  victorious  close,  had  made  themselves  the  most  powerful 
state  in  the  Peloponnesus.  Here  he  introduced  new  metres, 
which  he  probably  developed  from  the  popular  songs  of 
Crete,  instead  of  the  dactylic  hexameter,  which  had  still 
prevailed  in  the  poems  of  Terpander,  and  at  the  same  time 
he  organized  the  Spartan  choruses  more  perfectly  than  had 
been  done  before.  Of  his  poems  no  fragments  are  pre- 
served, but  his  name  was  so  great  that  the  Cretans  ascribed 
to  him  many  early  poems,  the  authors  of  which  were  un- 
known. His  chief  claim  to  distinction  is  that  he  intro- 
duced new  measures  at  Sparta,  thereby  making  them  known 
to  all  Greece,  and  thus  began  the  remarkable  development 
of  choral  poetry.  What  Terpander  had  done  for  the  nome, 
and  indirectly  for  monodic  lyric  poetry  in  general,  that 
Thaletas  did  for  choral  poetry.  His  poems  were  chiefly 
paeans  and  hyporchemes.  Xenodamus,  of  Cythera,  and 
Xenocritus,  of  Locri,  carried  on  the  work  of  Thaletas,  but 
we  know  little  or  nothing  of  them  except  that  in  some  of 
the  paeans  of  Xenocritus  the  mythical  part  was  made  so 
important  that  some  later  critics  preferred  to  call  the 
poems  dithyrambs  rather  than  paeans.  The  poems  of  Thale- 
tas were  doubtless  almost  exclusively  religious,  but  a  more 
worldly  element  begins  to  invade  choral  poetry  in  the  next 
generation. 

The  first  important  author  of  choral  poems  after  Thale- 
tas was  Alcman,  who  lived  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century,  rather  after  650  B.  c.  than  before.  If  the 
words  in  one  of  the  extant  fragments1  apply  to 
the  poet  himself,  he  was  born  at  Sardis,  but  his  name  is 

1  Frg.  24. 


110  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Greek,  and  if  he  was  born  at  Sardis  he  was  a  Greek  by  race. 
His  life  was  passed  for  the  most  part,  at  any  rate,  at  Sparta, 
and  it  was  there  that  he  composed  his  poems,  the  most  fa- 
mous of  which  were  his  parthenia,  though  he  also  composed 
hymns,  paeans,  and  other  kinds  of  verse,  among  them  love- 
songs.  He  lived  to  be  an  old  man,  for  he  speaks  of  himself 
as  such  in  one  of  the  extant  fragments.  His  poems  are  in 
the  Spartan  dialect,  which  was  generally  considered  some- 
what rude  and  unmusical,  but  becomes  in  Alcman's  hands 
capable  of  much  grace  and  sweetness.  Alcman's  chief  in- 
novation as  a  musician  appears  to  have  consisted  in  giving 
greater  prominence  to  the  flute  than  it  had  enjoyed  before, 
but  he  was  himself  a  player  of  the  lyre,  and  regarded  the 
lyre  as  the  superior  instrument.  In  his  verses  he  employed 
a  variety  of  new  metres,  for  the  most  part  short  lines,  and 
he  did  not,  like  the  Lesbian  poets  and  Anacreon,  repeat  the 
same  stanza  in  different  poems,  but  made  new  combinations 
of  verses  for  new  poems.  In  this  he  was  followed  by  the 
great  choral  lyrists  Simonides,  Pindar,  and  Bacchylides, 
and  may  therefore  be  said  to  have  shown  the  way  by  which 
choral  poetry  was  to  attain  to  its  perfection.  Alcman 
seems  to  have  adopted  or  invented  the  triad,  consisting 
of  a  strophe  and  antistrophe  exactly  alike  in  metre,  fol- 
lowed by  an  epode  differing  from  the  other  two.  This 
arrangement  became  the  regular  one  in  choral  poetry.  It 
was  varied,  to  be  sure,  and  was  never  a  fixed  rule,  but  it 
Was  so  evidently  excellent  that  it  was  adopted  as  the  usual 
arrangement. 

Thaletas  is  little  more  than  a  name,  for  not  a  line  of  his 

poetry  is  preserved.     Of  Alcman's  works  about  one  hundred 

and  fifty  fragments  remain,  most  of  which  are 

short  and  of  little  value.     Several  consist  of 
poems. 

more  than  one  line,  and  one,  written  on  a  piece 

of  papyrus  found  in  Egypt  in  1855,  is  long  enough  to  give 

some  idea  of  the  structure  of  his  parthenia.     The  fragment 

is  mutilated,  but  enough  remains  to  show  that  the  first 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  111 

part  told  the  story  of  the  slaying  of  the  sons  of  Hippocoon 
by  Castor  and  Polydejices.  Then  the  poet  suddenly  leaves 
mythical  ground,' and  turns^to^the  praise  of  the  Spartan 
maidens.  How  the  poem  ended  is"unknown.  The  mixture 
of  mythical  or  religious  narrative  with  matter  of  worldly 
interest  is  found  also  in  the  poems  of  the  later  great 
choral  poets,  and  here,  too,  Alcman  seems  to  have  been 
the  one  to  lead  the  way. 

Alcman's  spirit  as  shown  in  his  poems  seems  to  have 
been  full  of  grace  and  tenderness.  He  loved  to  sing  of 
beautiful  maidens,  of  love,  and  of  nature.  His  description 
of  the  rest  and  quiet  of  night  shows  at  once  his  apprecia- 
tion of  nature  and  his  liking  for  a  telling  enumeration  of 
details : 

The  peaks  of  the  mountains  and  the  ravines  are  sleeping,  the 
capes  and  the  torrents,  the  leaves  and  all  the  creeping  things  that 
the  black  earth  nourishes,  the  beasts  of  the  mountains  and  the  race 
of  bees,  and  the  monsters  in  the  depths  of  the  dark  sea ;  the  tribes 
of  long- winged  birds  are  asleep. 

When  he  speaks  of  his  failing  strength  he  wishes  he 
were  a  ceryl,  the  male  halcyon,  which  was  said  to  be  carried 
in  its  old  age  by  its  mate  : 

No  longer,  O  sweet-toned  maiden  singers  with  charming  voices, 
can  my  limbs  bear  me ;  ah !  wTould  that  I  might  be  a  ceryl,  who 
hovers  with  the  halcyons  upon  the  flower  of  the  wave  with  fearless 
heart,  the  purple  sea-bird  of  spring ! 

Of  love  he  sings :  "  Sweet  love,  by  the  will  of  Cypris, 
floods  my  heart  once  more  and  soothes  me." 

There  is  little  in  the  poems  of  Alcman  to  remind  us  of 
the  proverbial  concise  brevity  of  Spartan  speech  or  the  se- 
verity of  Spartan  manners.  His  style  is  gracious,  easy,  and 
elegant  in  spite  of  his  dialect.  If  he  lacks  Pindar's  majes- 
tic dignity  he  has  a  sweet  simplicity  all  his  own,  and  in  his 
wealth  of  images  and  figures  he  is  a  proper  precursor  of 
Pindar. 


112  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Arion,  from  the  Lesbian  town  of  Methymna,  is  said  to 
have  been  a  pupil  of  Alcman.     This  indicates  his  date  and 

also  tells  us  that  he  spent  some  time  at  Sparta. 

His  date  is  further  fixed  by  the  fact  that  his 
chief  activity  was  at  the  court  of  Periander,  who  was  tyrant 
of  Corinth  from  625  to  585  B.  c.  Arion  is  said  to  have  trav- 
eled in  Italy  and  Sicily,  and  the  story  goes  that  as  he  was 
returning  with  much  wealth  from  Sicily  to  Greece,  the  sail- 
ors determined  to  rob  and  murder  him.  He  asked  to  be 
allowed  to  sing  one  more  song,  and  when  his  request  was 
granted,  he  clothed  himself  in  his  flowing  singer's  costume, 
took  his  lyre,  and  sang  the  Orthian  or  the  Pythian  nome. 
Then  he  threw  himself  into  the  sea.  But  a  dolphin,  at- 
tracted by  the  music,  had  approached  the  ship,  and  now 
took  Arion  upon  his  back  and  carried  him  safely  to  Taena- 
rum.  Arion  proceeded  from  Taenarum  to  Corinth  by  land, 
arrived  before  the  ship,  told  his  story,  and  caused  his 
would-be  murderers  to  be  arrested  and  punished  on  their 
arrival.  This  tale  is  probably  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of 
some  monument  representing  Apollo  and  his  sacred  dol- 
phin, but  it  shows  Arion's  reputation.  The  Orthian  nome * 
was  ascribed  to  Terpander,  and  if  Arion  was  said  to  have 
sung  it,  he  was  thereby  said  to  have  been  to  some  extent 
under  the  influence  of  Terpander,  which  is  natural,  as 
Arion  was  himself  a  Lesbian. 

Of  Arion's  poems  no  remains  are  preserved,  for  the 
hymn  to  Poseidon  and  the  elegiac  distich  ascribed  to  him  by 
iElian  are  evidently  the  works  of  a  later  period.  He  is  said 
to  have  written  prooemia,  poems  like  the  so-called  Homeric 
hymns,  to  be  sung  as  introductions  to  epic  recitations  or 
the  like,  but  his  importance  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  first 
made  the  dithyramb  a  form  of  literary  poetry.  The  origin 
of  the  word  dithyramb  is  uncertain  and  unexplained,  but 


1  The  Pythian  nome  is  probably  in  this  story  merely  another  name 
for  the  Orthian  nome,  indicating  that  it  was  sung  at  Delphi. 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  113 

from  the  time  when  the  worship  of  Dionysus  was  intro- 
duced into  Greece-there-were  probably  dances  in  his  honor 
accompanied  with  music  and>song.  These  were  without 
doubt  rude  and  coarse,  but  it  may  be  that  they  had  in  them 
a  dramatic,  germ.  Perhaps  from  the  beginning  there  was 
some  sort  of  responsive  song,  or,  one  of  the  singers  may 
have  sung  a  solo  to  which  the  rest  sang  a  refrain.  -  At  any 
rate,  there  must  have  been  something  about  the  rude,  pop- 
ular songs  to  Dionysus  that  distinguished  them  from  the 
other  popular   songs.      Arion    developed   the 

£th0nrambtlie  dithyramb  from  the  state  of  an  unregulated 
popular  song  and  dance  to  that  of  a  perform- 
ance by  a  trained  chorus.  In  the  Attic  period  the  dithy- 
rambic  chorus  consisted  of  fifty  members,  but  whether 
Arion  employed  so  many,  or  whether  he  employed  any  fixed 
number,  we  do  not  know.  He  arranged  his  chorus  in  a  cir- 
cle and  caused  the  leader  to  sing  in  alternation  with  the  rest 
or  to  speak  to  the  other  members  of  the  chorus  while  they 
danced.  That  this  imperfect  dialogue  contains  the  germ 
of  the  drama  is  evident,  and  the  dithyramb  is  especially  im- 
portant because  it  was  the  parent  of  tragedy.  The  chorus 
of  the  dithyramb  appeared  disguised  as  satyrs,  clad  in  goat- 
skins.1 This  is  said  to  have  been  an  innovation  of  Arion, 
though  the  matter  is  doubtful,  but  at  any  rate  this  disguise 
is  important,  for  in  no  other  form  of  choral  poetry  did  the 
performers  take  any  unusual  form  or  wear  any  unusual 
dress.  In  the  dithyramb  the  members  of  the  chorus  were 
no  longer  themselves,  but  they  played  a  part,  and  this  is  a 
great  step  toward  dramatic  representation.  If  the  chorus 
were  satyrs,  followers  of  Dionysus,  it  would  be  natural  for 
the  poet  as  leader  of  the  chorus  to  take  the  part  of  Diony- 
sus himself.  This  is  another  step  toward  drama.  In  some 
dithyrambs  myths  not  directly  relating  to  Dionysus  were 


1  The  Greek  word  tragos  means  goat.  Hence  the  members  of  the 
chorus  clad  in  goatskins  were  called  tragoi.  Their  song  was  called 
goat-song,  iragcedia,  tragedy. 


114  GREEK  LITERATURE 

sung,  but  whether  this  innovation  was  introduced  by  Arion 
or  by  some  later  poet  is  unknown. 

Stesichorus  was  a  citizen  of  Himera,  in  Sicily,  though  he 
may  have  been  born  in  the  Locrian  town  of  Metaurus,  in 
Italy.  He  lived  eighty  years  between  640  and  550  b.  c, 
though  the  exact  years  of  his  birth  and  death  are  not 
known.  His  real  name  was  Tisias,  but  he  was  called 
Stesichorus,  "  arranger  of  choruses."  His  father's  name  is 
variously  given,  but  there  is  perhaps  the  most 
evidence  that  he  was  called  Euclides.  When 
Phalaris  was  planning  to  become  tyrant  of  Himera,.  Ste- 
sichorus warned  the  citizens,  telling  them  the  fable  of  the 
horse  who,  in  order  to  be  revenged  upon  the  stag,  allowed 
himself  to  be  bridled  by  the  man ;  but  the  warning  was  in 
vain,  and  Stesichorus  is  said  to  have  been  forced  to  leave 
Himera  and  to  have  died  at  Catana,  where  his  tomb  was 
shown. 

The  lyric  poets  in  Sicily  before  Stesichorus  had  been 
Xanthus,  of  whom  little  is  known,  except  that  Stesichorus 
is  said  to  have  imitated  him  in  his  poem  about  Orestes, 
Xenocritus,  of  Locri  (see  page  109),  and  Arion,  whose  travels 
in  Sicily  have  been  mentioned  already  (page  112).  Stesich- 
orus was  therefore  not  the  originator  of  choral  poetry  in 
Sicily,  but  he  was  an  innovator,  especially  in  the  matter  of 
metres  and  strophes.  The  metres  he  preferred  were  dac- 
tylic or  epitrite,  the  latter  being  formed  of  dactyls  and 
trochees,  apparently  so  arranged  that  the  trochees  were 
lengthened  to  the  time  of  the  dactyls,  not  the  dactyls 
shortened  to  that  of  the  trochees,  as  in  logaoedic  verse. 
Not  that  he  used  these  metres  exclusively,  but  he  seems  to 
have  preferred  them,  and  along  with  them  other  long  and 
dignified  lines,  such  as  those  composed  of  eight  dactyls. 
His  strophes,  which  were  arranged  in  triads,  were  appar- 
ently longer  than  those  of  his  predecessors,  and  therefore 
capable  of  more  variety  and  of  more  sustained  thought  or 
narrative. 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  115 

The  poems  of  Stesichorus  formed  twenty-six  books. 
Some  of  them  werejseans  and  some  were  love-songs,  but 
the  greater  part  were  hyinhs^It  is  difficult  for  us  to  dis- 
tinguish between  hymns  and  somei  of  the  other  classes  of 
religious  songs,  such  as  paeans,  hyporchemes,  and  prosodia, 
but  the  hymns  seem  to  have  been  composed  with  less  refer- 
ence to  elaborate  accompaniment  or  dance  than 

sf6 -P h™  °f  most of  the  other  classes> and to nave  been  sun&' 
as  a  rule,  by  a  standing  chorus  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  flute.  Stesichorus  gave  great  prominence 
to  the  mythical  element  in  his  hymns.  In  fact,  the  hymns 
must  have  been  really  epic  in  their  narrative  quality,  though 
intended  to  be  sung,  and  therefore  lyric  in  their  manner 
of  composition.  The  titles  of  twelve  hymns  are  preserved  : 
the  Games  in  Honor  of  Pelias,  the  Geryoneis,  Cerberus, 
Cycnus,  Scylla,  the  Europeia,  Eriphyla,  the  Hunting  of  the 
Boar,  the  Destruction  of  Ilium,  Helen,  with  the  Palinode, 
the  Returns,  and  the  Oresteia.  In  these  hymns  it  is  evi- 
dent that  mythical  tales  were  told.  The  games  at  the 
funeral  of  Pelias  were  famous,  even  before  Stesichorus 
made  them  more  glorious  by  his  poetry,  the  contests  of 
Heracles  with  Geryon,  Cerberus,  and  Cycnus,  the  love  of 
Zeus  for  Europa,  the  necklace  of  Eriphyla,  the  hunt  of  the 
Calydonian  boar,  the  destruction  of  Troy,  the  fate  of  Helen, 
the  return  of  the  heroes  from  Troy  to  their  homes,  and  the 
vengeance  inflicted  by  Orestes  upon  the  murderers  of  Aga- 
memnon, were  all  well  known.  The  story  of  Scylla  may 
have  been  less  familiar,  but  it  was  not  an  invention  of  Ste- 
sichorus. When  the  ancients  called  him  the  most  Homeric 
of  poets,  it  was  in  part  because  he  treated  stories  told  in  the 
Homeric  epics.  But  his  treatment  of  these  themes  was 
new,  and  seems  to  have  appealed,  in  some  instances  at  least, 
to  the  Sicilian  and  Italian  Greeks,  by  making  those  parts  of 
the  ancient  legends  which  referred  to  Sicily  and  Italy  espe- 
cially prominent.  So  Stesichorus  is  the  first  poet  who  is 
known  to  have  told  of  the  coming  of  iEneas  to  Italy,  there- 


116  GREEK  LITERATURE 

by  paving  the  way  for  Virgil's  treatment  of  the  same  story 
in  the  /Eneid.  Other  myths,  too,  he  told  in  a  new  way, 
and  his  versions  were  often  used  by  later  poets,  especially 
by  the  dramatists,  as  the  foundations  of  their  works.  The 
hymns  of  Stesichorus  must  have  been  pretty  long,  for  the 
Oresteia  alone  formed  two  of  the  twenty-six  books  of  his 
poems.  Probably  the  titles  preserved  to  us  represent  a 
large  part  of  his  entire  work. 

In  his  treatment  of  the  myths,  Stesichorus  did  not  keep 
himself  completely  in  the  background,  as  an  epic  poet  would 
have  done,  but  allowed  his  own  personality  to  express  itself. 
The  story  is  told  that  in  his  Helen  he  criticized  the  conduct 
of  his  heroine,  and  in  punishment  for  this  was  stricken  with 
blindness.  Thereupon  he  wrote  the  Palinode,  retracting 
his  insulting  language,  and  saying :  "  Kot  true  is  this  tale. 
You  did  not  go  in  the  well-oared  ships,  nor  did  you  come 
to  the  walls  of  Troy."  The  extant  fragments  of  Stesichorus 
number  less  than  one  hundred,  and  the  longest  of  these, 
from  the  Geryoneis,  consists  of  only  six  lines  : 

Helius,  son  of  Hyperion,  embarked  in  the  golden  vessel,  that  he 
might  cross  the  ocean  and  come  to  the  abysses  of  dark  night,  to  his 
mother  and  his  virgin- wedded  wife  and  his  dear  children ;  and  with 
his  feet  the  child  of  Zeus  trod  the  grove  shaded  with  laurels. 

This  fragment  seems  to  refer  to  a  belief  similar  to  that 
of  the  Egyptians,  who  made  the  sun  sail  in  a  boat  through 
the  dark  from  his  setting  to  his  rising.  But  the  few  frag- 
ments give  us  little  idea  of  the  importance  of  Stesichorus. 
His  glory  was  great  through  all  antiquity.  His  name  was 
placed  beside  that  of  Homer.  Parts  of  his  poems  were 
sung  at  banquets,  though  originally  intended  for  more 
serious  occasions.  The  myths  as  told  by  him  inspired 
dramatists  and  painters.  But  his  influence  upon  choral 
poetry  was  especially  great,  for  he  taught  the  poets  to 
clothe  the  ancient  legends  in  lyric  forms  for  elaborate 
choral  production,  and  by  his  innovations  in  metres  and 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  117 

music,  especially  by  his  constant  use  of  the  triad,  he  made 
choral  poetry  a  ntting__means  of  expression  for  the  genius 
of  Simonides  and  Pindar. 

Ibycus,  the  son  of  Phytius,^as  born  at  Ehegium,  in 
Magna  Graecia.  It  is  said  that  his  fellow  citizens  offered 
him  the  "  tyranny  "  of  the  city,  but  that  he  refused,  and 
went  away  to  escape  their  importunities.  He  was  one  of 
the  favorite  poets  at  the  court  of  Polycrates  of  Samos, 
where  he  was  an  associate  of  Anacreon.  If  the  statement 
of  Suidas,  that  Ibycus  was  called  to  Samos  by 
the  father  of  Polycrates  about  560  b.  c,  is  cor- 
rect, he  must  haye  been  a  much  older  man  than  Anacreon. 
He  appears  to  have  lived  to  old  age,  but  as  the  date  of  his 
death  is  unknown,  that  of  his  birth  can  not  be  fixed  with 
any  accuracy.  He  was  probably  born  not  many  years  after 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century.  The  story  went  that 
he  was  murdered  by  robbers,  and  that  in  his  last  moments, 
seeing  a  flock  of  cranes  flying  over  him,  he  exclaimed, 
"  These  cranes  will  avenge  me."  Shortly  after,  the  murder- 
ers were  seated  in  the  theatre,  and  one  of  them  saw  a  flock 
of  cranes  passing.  Turning  to  his  companion,  he  said : 
"  See,  the  avengers  of  Ibycus."  The  remark  was  overheard, 
the  murderers  were  convicted  and  punished,  and  thus  the 
"  cranes  of  Ibycus  "  became  a  proverbial  expression  for  the 
power  of  the  gods  in  revealing  crime. 

Of  the  poems  of  Ibycus,  which  formed  seven  books, 
little  is  known.  He  wrote  hymns  in  the  manner  of  Ste- 
sichorus  and  on  similar  themes,  but  his  favorite  myths  seem 
to  have  been  those  which  dealt  with  love,  as,  for  instance, 
the  story  of  Zeus  and  Ganymede,  or  of  Eos  and  Tithonus. 
He  is  spoken  of  as  a  poet  of  love,  and  has  therefore  been 
supposed  to  have  written  short  love-songs,  like  those  of 
Sappho  or  Anacreon,  but  without  sufficient  reason.  His 
love  poems  were  in  all  probability  choral  poems,  and  if  he 
was  at  all  influenced  by  Anacreon,  it  was  only  in  his  choice 
of   subjects,  not   in   his   manner  of   treating   them.     His 


118  GREEK  LITERATURE 

choral  poems  were  in  some  cases  addressed  to  living  per- 
sons, and  are  thus  the  first  real  encomia  known.    Of  his  style 
little  can  now  be  said,  as  the  fragments  of  his  works  are 
few  (about  thirty,  besides  about  the  same  num- 
e  poems       ^er  Q^  ^wcq  references)5  an(j  the  longest  con- 
sist of  only  a  few  lines.     From  the  remarks  of 
ancient  writers  we  learn  that  his  writing  was  graceful  and 
passionate^  sweet  and  vigorous.     His  metres  and  dialect 
are  modeled  after  those  of  Stesichorus,  though  his  dialect 
is  less  purely  Doric,  perhaps  because  his  native  Ehegium 
was  settled  in  part  by  iEolians,  perhaps  because  at  Samos 
he  came  under  the  influence  of  the  Lesbian  school  of  po- 
etry.    The  two  longest  fragments  confirm  the  judgment  of 
the  ancients  about  the  character  of  his  poems : 

In  the  spring  the  Cydonian  apple-trees,  watered  by  the  river 
streams  in  the  fresh  garden  of  maidens,  and  the  buds  swelling 
under  the  shadowing  vine  leaves  grow  green;  yet  my  love  never 
lies  down  to  rest,  but  like  a  north  wind  blazing  with  the  lightning, 
leaping  away  from  Cypris  with  flaming  madness,  stern  and  bold  he 
shakes  my  heart  from  the  bottom.1 

Eros  once  more  from  under  his  dark  lashes  casting  a  tender 
glance,  draws  me  by  all  sorts  of  enticements  into  the  inextricable 
snares  of  Cypris;  truly  I  tremble  at  his  approach,  as  a  horse,  for- 
merly victor  in  the  chariot-race,  in  his  old  age  enters  against  his 
will  into  the  contest  of  swift  chariots. 

1  The  text  is  doubtful  at  the  end.  I  have  adopted  the  reading  given 
by  H.  W.  Smyth  in  his  Melic  Poets. 


CHAPTEK    X 

CHORAL    LYRIC    POETRY   (Continued) 

Simonides  of  Ceos,  556-478  b.  c— Bacchylides,  about  505-430  (?)  b.  c. 

* 

The  progress  of  choral  poetry  may  be  divided  into  three 
periods :  The  first,  with  Thaletas,  Alcman,  and  Arion,  is 
the  period  of  the  originators ;  the  second,  in  which  Ste- 
sichorns  is  the  commanding  figure,  is  the  period  of  great 
technical  advance ;  the  third,  with  Simonides,  Bacchylides, 
and,  above  all,  Pindar,  is  the  period  of  perfection. 

Simonides  was  born  at  Iulis,  on  the  little  Ionian  island 
of  Ceos,  off  the  coast  of  Attica,  about  556  b.  c.  His  father's 
name  was  Leoprepes.  These  facts  are  known 
Ceos°ni  CS  °  fr°m  an  epigram  which  he  wrote  in  476  B.  c,  in 
which  he  says  he  is  eighty  years  old.  He  began 
to  write  poetry  at  an  early  age,  and  when  about  thirty 
years  old  was  called  to  Athens  by  Hipparchus,  where  he 
met  Lasus  of  Hermione  and  Anacreon.  After  the  death  of 
Hipparchus  he  went  to  Thessaly,  first  to  Crannon  and 
Pharsalus,  the  seats  of  the  family  of  the  Scopadae,  then  to 
Larissa,  the  home  of  the  Aleuadae.  He  seems  to  have  lived 
some  time  with  the  Scopadae,  for  several  of  his  poems  are 
dedicated  to  them.  In  one  of  these  poems  he  devoted 
much  space  to  the  praise  of  the  Dioscuri,  Castor  and  Poly- 
deuces  (Pollux),  and  when  he  asked  for  payment  from  the 
Scopadae,  they  refused  it,  telling  him  to  apply  to  the  Dios- 
curi. Shortly  after  this  the  family  of  the  Scopadae  was  al- 
most annihilated  by  the  falling  of  the  theatre  in  which 
they  were  seated,  but  Simonides  was  miraculously  saved,  and 
the  credit  of  the  Dioscuri  as  divine  helpers  was  established. 
9  119 


120  GREEK  LITERATURE 

When  the  Persians  invaded  Greece  in  490  b.  c.,  Simonides 
left  Thessaly  and  went  to  Athens,  where  he  composed  an 
elegy  in  honor  of  those  who  fell  at  Marathon,  his  elegy 
winning  the  prize  against  one  composed  hy  ^Eschylus.  At 
the  time  of  the  second  invasion  he  was  the  friend  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Greeks,  and  wrote  choral  poems,  elegies,  and 
epigrams  in  honor  of  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae  and  Arte- 
misium.  In  476  he  was  still  at  Athens,  and  at  the  age  of 
eighty  years  won  the  victory  in  a  dithyrambic  contest.  It  was 
apparently  after  this  that  he  went  to  Sicily  and  Italy<5  where 
he  lived  at  the  courts  of  Hiero  of  Syracuse,  Theron  of  Acra- 
gas,  Anaxilas  of  Rhegium,  and  other  rulers.  At  Syracuse, 
Hiero  had  a  brilliant  court  which  was  visited  by  distinguished 
poets,  among  them  Simonides's  nephew,  Bacchylides,  and 
Pindar.  Apparently  there  were  at  Syracuse,  or  elsewhere, 
some  disagreements  between  Pindar  and  Simonides  and  his 
nephew,  to  which  some  passages  in  Pindar's  poems  are  sup- 
posed to  refer,  but  how  serious  the  troubles  were  can  not 
now  be  determined.  Simonides  died  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
nine  years,  probably  at  Syracuse,  where  his  tomb  existed. 

The  poems  of  Simonides  were  numerous  and  of  various 

kinds — epigrams,  elegies,  dithyrambs,  paeans,  and  encomia, 

with  the  two  subdivisions  of  encomia,  epinicia, 

The  poems  of    Qr  0(jeg  -n  ]lonor  0f  victories  in  the  games,  and 

threnoi,  or  mourning  songs  in  honor  of  the 
dead.  Simonides  was  regarded  as  the  master  of  epigram, 
but  of  the  eighty  epigrams  preserved  under  his  name  many 
are  certainly,  and  many  others  probably,  not  really  his.  The 
best  known  is  perhaps  this,  in  honor  of  the  Spartans  who 
fell  at  Thermopylae : 

Go  tell  the  Spartans,  thou  that  passest  by, 
That  here  obedient  to  their  laws  we  lie.1 

1  Translated  by  William  Lisle  Bowles.     Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.,  i,  101, 
renders  the  lines : 

Die,  hospes,  Spartae,  nos  te  hie  vidisse  iacentes, 
Dum  Sanctis  patriae  legibus  obsequimur. 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  121 

The  epitaph  of  the  soothsayer  Megistias  is  also  well 
known :  "  This  is  the  tomb  of  the  renowned  Megistias, 
whom  once  the  Persians  slew  when  they  had  crossed  the 
river  Spercheius,  a  prophet,  who,  knowing  then  well  the  ap- 
proaching fate,  had  not  the  heart  to  desert  the  leaders  of 
Sparta."  Of  his  other  elegiac  poems  there  are  few  rem- 
nants. One  of  these  is  an  amplification  of  the  Homeric 
line,  "  As  is  the  race  of  leaves,  such  is  the  race  of  men."  Of 
the  dithyrambs  of  Simonides,  two  titles,  Memnon  and  Eu- 
ropa,  are  all  that  we  know.  These  show  that  he  did  not 
limit  himself  in  this  kind  of  poetry  to  the  myths  of  Diony- 
sus. His  paeans  are  almost  unknown.  Of  his  hyporchemes 
we  have  only  a  few  verses.  His  hymns,  too,  have  been  al- 
most entirely  lost,  but  we  can  still  see  that  they  contained 
mythical'  narrative,  as  did  those  of  Stesichorus,  though 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  were  as  long  or  so 
nearly  epic  in  character  as  those  of  his  great  predecessor. 

Of  all  the  poems  of  Simonides,  the  most  important,  the 
most  original,  and  the  most  celebrated  were  the  encomia,  in- 
The  encomia  eluding  the  epinicia  and  the  threnoi,  and  fortu- 
of  Simon-  nately  these  are  the  poems  of  which  the  most 
ides-  extensive    fragments    remain.      Some  of  the 

hymns  of  Ibycus  were  essentially  encomia,  but  Simon- 
ides brought  this  kind  of  poetry  to  its  complete  develop- 
ment. He  it  was  who  employed  the  myth  to  add  to  the 
brilliancy  of  his  praise  of  men,  associating  the  princes  to 
whom  his  poems  were  dedicated  with  the  heroes  of  old  or 
even  with  the  gods.  Too  little  of  his  poems  remains  to 
show  how  his  myths  were  selected  or  how  they  were  treated ; 
but  much  of  what  is  most  admirable  in  the  poems  of  Pin- 
dar and  Bacchylides  is  undoubtedly  due  to  the  example  of 
Simonides.  The  encomia  were  written  in  honor  of  wealthy 
princes,  and  Simonides  is  said  to  be  the  first  poet  who  ob- 
tained regular  payment  for  his  odes,  thus  putting  the  poet 
and  musician  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  painter  and  the 
sculptor.     He  has  been  charged  with  love  of  money  and 


122  GREEK  LITERATURE 

even  with  venality,  but  in  reality  his  predecessors,  such  as 
Anacreon,  had  received  gifts  from  the  rulers  wi^h  whom 
they  lived,  and  the  difference  between  accepting  gifts  and 
receiving  payment  is  a  difference  in  little  more  than  name. 
The  poetry  of  Simonides  shows  him  to  have  been  a  man 
of  varied  talents.  It  is  elegant,  graceful,  occasionally  power- 
ful, but  more  often  touching,  sweet,  and  pathetic.  His  di- 
alect is  Doric,  with  some  Ionic  and  iEolic  forms,  due  per- 
haps to  his  Ionic  birth  and  his  sojourn  in  Thessaly.  His 
metres  are  various  and  skilfully  employed.  His  strophes 
appear  to  have  been  shorter  than  those  of  Pindar,  though 
longer  than  those  of  the  earlier  poets.  In  the  divisions  of 
his  poems  he  used  the  triad  of  Alcman  and  Stesichorus. 
In  intellect  and  character  Simonides  was  well  balanced  and 
reasonable  rather  than  enthusiastic  and  exalted.  So  he 
says: 

It  is  hard  to  become  a  truly  good  man,  square  1  in  hands  and 
feet  and  mind.  Whoever  is  bad  but  not  too  reckless,  so  long  as  he 
is  acquainted  with  justice  that  helps  the  city,  is  a  sound  man,  and  I 
shall  not  find  fault  with  him ;  for  the  race  of  fools  is  endless.  All 
things  are  excellent  in  which  there  is  no  taint  of  baseness.  And  the 
saying  of  Pittacus  is  not  right  in  my  eyes,  though  spoken  by  a  wise 
man.  He  said,  "It  is  hard  to  be  noble."  Only  a  god  could  compass 
this;  for  a  man  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  bad,  whom  resistless  disas- 
ter drags  down.  For  in  prosperity  every  man  is  good,  and  bad  in 
adversity.  And  best  are  those  whom  the  gods  love.  Therefore  I 
shall  never  set  my  life's  happiness  upon  a  vain  empty  hope,  seeking 
for  what  can  never  be,  a  perfect  man,  of  us  who  eat  the  fruit  of  the 
wide  earth ;  and  when  I  find  one  I  will  let  you  know.  But  I  praise 
and  approve  all  who  do  nothing  base  willingly;  but  against  neces- 
sity not  even  the  gods  contend. 

Something  of  the  sweet  pathos  of  his  poetry  is  seen  in 
the  fragment  descriptive  of  Danae  and  the  infant  Perseus 
afloat  in  the  chest  on  the  sea : 

1  In  the  Pythagorean  school  the  square  was  regarded  as  the  perfect 
figure. 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  123 

When  in  the  well-carved  chest  she  lay  and  thte  wind  that  blew 
and  the  troubled  sea  bore  her  along,  then  fear  crept  over  her  wet 
cheeks,  and  round  Perseus  she  threw  her  loving  arm  and  said:  "O 
child,  what  woe  is  mine  !  But  thou  slumberest  ;  in  calm  forgetful- 
ness  thou  sleepest  in  the  cheerless,  bronze-nailed  bark,  wrapped  in 
the.  starless  night  and  darkling  shade  ;  and  thou  heedest  not  the 
thick  brine  of  the  wave  that  passes  by  above  thy  head,  nor  the  roar 
of  the  wind,  as  thou  liest  in  thy  purple  cloak,  my  fair-faced  child  ! 
But  if  this  terror  were  terrible  to  thee,  thou  wouldst  turn  thy 
tiny  ear  to  my  words. .  But  I  say,  '  Sleep,  child,  let  the  sea  sleep, 
and  let  our  measureless  woe  sleep ;  and  may  some  change  appear, 
O  Father  Zeus,  from  thee  !  But  if  I  pray  a  prayer  bold  beyond 
right,  be  merciful  to  me  ! '  " 

This  passage  can  hardly  be  surpassed  in  its  kind,  and 
is  in  itself  sufficient  to  show  that  the  admiration  of  the 
ancients  for  Simonides  was  fully  justified. 

Bacchylides,  the  nephew  and  imitator  of  Simonides,  was 
born  on  the  island  of  Ceos,  probably  between  510  and  500 
b.  c.  His  father's  name  was  Medon,  and  his 
grandfather,  named  Bacchylides,  was  an  ath- 
lete. The  details  of  his  life  are  not  well  known.  Plutarch 
says  he  was  banished  from  Ceos,  and  went  to  live  in  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus. But  he  sent  Hiero  an  ode  from  Ceos  in  476  b.  c, 
which  seems  to  show  that  his  banishment  came  late  in  life 
or  was  of  brief  duration.  He  probably  visited  the  court  of 
Hiero  at  Syracuse,  where  he  may  have  been  thrown  together 
with  his  uncle  Simonides  and  Pindar.  But  his  three  odes  to 
Hiero  were  written  in  476,  470,  and  468  b.  c.  The  first  of 
these  was  written  at  Ceos,  the  others  apparently  at  Delphi 
and  Olympia,  not  at  Syracuse.  The  date  of  his  visit  or  his 
visits  to  Sicily  can,  therefore,  not  be  determined.  He  may 
have  lived  until  430,  but  the  date  of  his  death  is  unknown. 

The  poems  of  Bacchylides  were  lost  for  centuries,  with 
the  exception  of  some  inconsiderable  fragments,  until  a 
papyrus  containing  twenty  poems  more  or  less  mutilated, 
besides  a  number  of  fragments,  was  found  in  Egypt  and 
brought  to  London,  where  it  was  published  in  1897.     The 


124  GREEK  LITERATURE 

original  papyrus  is  in  the  British  Museum.     Some  of  the 

poems   are   long   and   well   preserved.     Bacchylides  wrote 

hymns,  dithyrambs,   paeans,   hyporchemes,   parthenia,  epi- 

nicia,  love-songs,  drinking-songs,  and  epigrams. 

BacXudef  0f  the  twent^  Poemts  Preserved,  the  first  four- 
teen are  epinicia ;  the  others  are  probably  all 
dithyrambs.  Nine  of  the  epinician  odes  are  too  short  to  be 
very  instructive,  because  the  manuscript  of  some  of- them 
is  mutilated,  while  others  were  never  more  than  a  congratu- 
latory greeting  to  the  victor.  But  the  five  others  have  one 
hundred  to  two  hundred  lines  each,  and  show  clearly  the 
construction  of  poems  of  this  class.  The  beginning  is  con- 
cerned with  the  circumstances  of  the  victory ;  then  follows 
a  myth,  occupying  the  middle  of  the  poem  and  forming  by 
far  the  longest  part  of  it,  and  at  the  end  are  moral  reflec- 
tions. The  same  arrangement  is  found  in  Pindar's  epinicia, 
and  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  the  regular  one  in  poems 
of  this  character.  Its  invention  may  be  due  to  Simonides, 
though  it  may  be  of  earlier  origin.  Bacchylides  employs 
the  triad  of  strophe,  antistrophe,  and  epode  adopted  by 
Stesichorus,  and  uses  it  so  freely  that  he  does  not  care  to 
make  the  end  of  a  strophe  coincide  with  a  break  in  the 
thought  or  even  with  the  end  of  a  sentence,  but  arranges 
the  metrical  parts  of  the  poems  with  little  or  no  attention 
to  the  natural  divisions  in  the  meaning.  He  uses  much 
the  same  metres  and  dialect  as  Simonides,  and,  like  Simon- 
ides, he  aims  at  elegance  and  clearness,  grace  and  charm, 
rather  than  at  power  and  magnificence.  This  is  true  in  the 
epinician  odes,  but  even  more  evident  in  the  other  poems. 

The  six  poems  not  composed  in  honor  of  victories  are 
especially  interesting  because  they  are  the  only  choral 
lyrics  not  epinician  which  have  come  down  to  us  entire  or 
The  non-  nearly  entire.     Their  titles  and  subjects  are  as 

epinician  follows  : 

poems-  1.  The  Sons  of  Anterior;  The  Demand  for 

the  Restitution  of  Helen. — The  sons  of  Antenor  accompany 


CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY  125 

Menelaus  to  Troy,  where  they  demand  before  the  assembled 
Trojans  that  Helen  be  given  back. 

2.  The  title  is  wanting  and  the  first  part  of  the  poem  is 
mutilated.  The  poet,  after  an  invocation  to  the  Pythian 
Apollo,  tells  how  Heracles,  during  a  sacrifice  to  Zeus, 
receives  from  Deianeira  the  tunic  poisoned  with  the  blood 
of  the  centaur  Nessus.     The  title  may  have  been  Heracles. 

3.  Theseus  and  the  Youths. — Theseus  arrives  before 
Minos  with  the  seven  youths  and  seven  maidens  whom  the 
Athenians  sent  to  the  Minotaur.  Minos  wishes  to  seize  a 
maiden,  Eribcea,  but  Theseus  forbids,  saying  that  though 
Minos  is  the  son  of  Zeus,  he  is  himself  the  son  of  Poseidon. 
Minos  prays  that  Zeus  acknowledge  him  as  his  son  by  send- 
ing a  clap  of  thunder,  and  after  this  prayer  has  been  granted 
throws  his  ring  into  the  water,  telling  Theseus  to  prove  his 
divine  parentage  by  bringing  it  back.  Theseus  plunges  into 
the  water  and  returns  with  gifts  which  he  brings  from  the 
home  of  Poseidon  beneath  the  waves.  The  young  Athe- 
nians sing  a  paean. 

4.  Theseus. — A  lyric  dialogue  between  iEgeus  and  the 
chorus  (or  perhaps  Medea),  in  four  strophes  arranged  as 
questions  and  answers,  in  substance  as  follows : 

Chorus.  O  king,  why  does  the  trumpet  sound  ?  What  is  hap- 
pening ? 

King.  A  herald  has  come  from  the  isthmus  telling  of  a  wonder- 
ful hero  who  has  slain  the  mighty  Sinis,  the  man-slaying  Crommyo- 
nian  sow,  and  the  overweening  Sciron. 

Chorus.  What  man  is  this  ?  Does  he  come  with  an  army  or 
alone  ? 

King.  He  is  a  youth,  hardly  more  than  a  boy,  and  he  comes 
with  two  companions. 

5.  Io. — A  lyric  account  of  the  wanderings  of  Io,  com- 
posed for  an  Athenian  festival. 

6.  Idas. — A  much  mutilated  fragment  of  a  poem  com- 
posed for  a  Spartan  festival. 

It  is  difficult  to  tell  to  what  class  these  poems  belong. 


126  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  ancients  themselves  were  not  always  able  to  distin- 
guish between  paeans,  dithyrambs,  and  hyporchemes  in  the 
absence  of  the  music  or  of  tradition,  and  we  can  not  expect  to 
be  wiser  in  such  matters  than  they.  The  poems  have,  how- 
ever, many  points  of  similarity,  and  probably  they  are  all 
dithyrambs.  Certainly  the  fourth,  with  its  dialogue  between 
the  chorus  and  a  singer,  agrees  with  what  we  know  of  the 
dithyramb  in  its  half-dramatic  character. 

Among  the  previously  known  fragments  of  Bacchylides, 

one  of  the  longest,  from  a  paean,  praises  the  advantages  of 

peace,  enumerating   in   pleasing  and  elegant 

Style  o  verse  the  songs  at  the  altars,  the  sacrifices,  the 

Bacchylides.  i  j   „  *    .,  -, 

games,  revels,  and  songs   of  the  young,   and 

describing  the  arms  rusting  on  the  walls.  Another  frag- 
ment, from  a  drinking-song,  tells  of  the  happy  dreams  of  the 
drinker,  how  he  thinks  he  is  a  king,  dreams  that  he  dwells 
in  marble  halls,  and  sees  his  ships  come  from  Egypt  laden 
with  wealth.  In  these,  as  in  the  newly  found  poems,  Bac- 
chylides shows  himself  a  master  of  easy  and  graceful  dic- 
tion, a  poet  of  charming  fancy,  a  perfect  artist  in  the  use  of 
language.  There  is  nothing  obscure  or  difficult  in  his 
manner  of  expression,  no  struggling  to  utter  thoughts  too 
deep  or  too  new  for  ready  utterance.  Everything  is  pol- 
ished, finished,  and  brilliant — so  brilliant  and  finished  that 
if  there  is  any  lack  of  strength  one  hardly  notices  it.  We 
feel,  to  be  sure,  that  power  is  not  the  chief  element  in  the 
poetry  of  Bacchylides,  but  we  do  not  feel  that  it  is  lack- 
ing. One  of  the  chief  charms  of  his  diction  is  the  bril- 
liant use  he  makes  of  compound  words.  These  are  for  the 
most  part  adjectives,  such  as  "tirelessly-flowing,"  "sea- 
dwelling,"  "  bronze-walled,"  and  the  like,  though  other  com- 
pounds are  of  frequent  occurrence.  Many  of  these  com- 
pounds occur  nowhere  in  all  Greek  literature  except  in  the 
poems  of  Bacchylides,  and  his  free  use  of  new  words  of  this 
kind  shows  how  great  was  the  liberty  accorded  to  a  Greek 
poet  even  as  late  as  the  fifth  century  b.  c.     Pindar  also  uses 


CHORAL  LYRIC   POETRY  127 

many  new  words,  and  it  may  be  that  Bacchylides  merely 
adopted  a  fashion  established  by  Pindar  or  perhaps  by  Simon- 
ides  ;  but  even  in  that  case  there  is  much  originality  and 
beauty  in  the  compounds  used  by  Bacchylides,  and  they 
add  greatly  to  the  charm  of  his  poetry,  making  his  descrip- 
tions more  brilliantly  clear,  and  his  narrative  more  rapid, 
without  any  appearance  of  haste  or  lack  of  detail. 

The  longest  of  Bacchylides's  epinicia  (Ode  V)  celebrates 
the  victory  won  at  the  Olympic  games  in  476  b.  c.  by 
The  fifth  Pherenicus,  the  horse  of  Hiero  of  Syracuse.     It 

epinician  consists  of  five  triads  of  strophe,  antistrophe, 
ode-  and   epode,  two   hundred    lines  in  all.     The 

poem  begins  with  the  praise  of  Hiero : 

Fortunate  ruler  of  Syracuse  with  its  circling  horses,  thou  wilt 
know,  if  any  one  of  living  mortals,  the  sweet-gifted  glory  of  the 
violet-crowned  Muses  rightly.  Rest  thy  righteously-judging  mind 
from  cares,  and  look  hither  with  thy  thought  where  thy  guest-friend, 
the  famous  servant  of  gold-circleted  Urania,  with  the  deep-girdled 
Graces  has  woven  a  song  and  sends  it  from  a  sacred  isle  to  your  glo- 
rious city.  Now  he  wishes,  pouring  a  song  from  his  breast,  to  praise 
Hiero ;  but  cutting  the  deep  air  on  high  with  swift,  tawny  wings, 
the  eagle,  messenger  of  wide-ruling,  loud-crashing  Zeus,  is  bold, 
trusting  in  his  mighty  strength ;  while  the  shrill-voiced  birds  shrink 
in  fear.  The  heights  of  the  great  earth  hold  him  not,  nor  the  ter- 
rible waves  of  the  unwearied  sea;  he  hovers  in  the  boundless  Chaos, 
with  the  zephyrs,  of  fine  and  delicate  plumage,  easily  distinguished 
for  men  to  see. 

This  is  the  first  strophe  and  antistrophe.  In  the  first 
epode  the  poet  turns  to  the  victories  of  Pherenicus,  but 
ends  the  second  strophe  with  the  words : 

Blessed  he  to  whom  God  grants  a  share  of  blessings  and  to  live 
a  life  of  plenty  with  enviable  fortune ;  for  no  one  of  mortals  is  happy 
in  all  things. 

This  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  myth ;  for  the 
antistrophe  begins : 

They  say  that  once  the  gate-o'erturning  invincible  son  of  Zeus  of 
the  bright  lightning  descended  to  the  realms  of  slender-ankled  Per- 


128  GREEK  LITERATURE 

sephone  to  bring  to  the  light  from  Hades  the  sharp-toothed  dog, 
son  of  unapproachable  Echidna. 

Then  follows  the  story  of  a  meeting  between  Heracles 
and  Meleager  in  the  lower  world,  a -story  not  elsewhere  told 
in  Greek  literature.  Meleager  tells  Heracles  the  tale  of  the 
Calydonian  boar  and  his  own  death.  Suddenly,  with  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  antistrophe,  the  poet  breaks  off : 

White-armed  Calliope,  stop  the  well-made  chariot  here,  sing  of 
Zeus  the  son  of  Cronus,  the  Olympian  leader  of  the  gods,  and  Al- 
pheus,  unwearied  in  his  flowing,  and  the  might  of  Pelops,  and  Pisa, 
where  the  famous  Pherenicus,  winning  with  his  feet  the  victory  in 
the  race,  gave  glory  to  fair-towered  Syracuse,  bringing  to  Hiero  the 
wreath  of  happiness. 

The  poem  ends  with  praise  of  truth,  a  reference  to 
Hesiod,  and  good  wishes  for  Hiero. 

This  poem  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  style  of  Bacchylides, 
the  slight  connection  between  the  myth  and  the  occasion 
of  the  poem  in  odes  of  this  character,  and  also  of  the 
general  arrangement  of  epinician  odes.  In  the  odes  of 
Pindar  the  myth  is  sometimes  more  obviously  connected 
with  the  subject  of  the  poem  than  is  the  case  in  this  in- 
stance, but  not  always.  Pindar's  transitions  are  occasionally 
even  more  abrupt  than  here.  We  may  therefore  assume 
that  such  sudden  changes  of  subject  were  not  only  not 
considered  strange,  but  were  a  regular  part  of  the  composi- 
tion of  such  odes. 

Bacchylides  remained  a  much-read  poet  throughout  the 
classical  period,  and  was  greatly  admired  in  Alexandrian 
times.  Now  that  we  have  recovered  so  large  a  part  of  his 
works  (though  a  much  larger  part  is  probably  lost),  we  can 
understand  the  admiration  felt  in  antiquity  for  his  spark- 
ling, brilliant,  and  beautiful  verse,  his  picturesque  lan- 
guage, his  imagination,  and  his  technical  perfection.  In 
power  of  mind  and  originality  of  thought  Bacchylides  is, 
however,  inferior  to  Pindar. 


CHAPTEE   XI 

CHORAL  LYRIC  POETRY-PINDAR 
Pindar,  521-441  b.  c. — Lesser  choral  poets. 

Pindae,  the  son  of  Daiphantes  and  Cleodice,  was  born 
at  Cynoscephalas,  a  village  near  Thebes,  in  Boeotia.  He 
belonged  to  the  ancient  and  noble  family  of 
the  iEgidse,  and  was  naturally  an  aristocrat  in 
his  sympathies.  How  the  Theban  iEgidae  were  related  to 
the  iEgidae  at  Sparta  is  not  known,  but  there  was  probably 
some  connection,  and  it  is  therefore  probable  that  the 
Boeotian  Pindar  had  some  Dorian  blood  in  his  veins.  He 
was  born,  according  to  the  best  evidence,  in  the  spring  of 
521  b.  c,  and  was  therefore  older  than  Bacchylides.  He 
turned  to  lyric  poetry  at  an  early  age,  under  the  instruction 
of  the  flute-player  Scopelinus,  and  the  poetesses  Corinna 
and  Myrto.  He  is  also  said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  Lasus 
of  Hermione,  and  to  have  had  some  connection  with  Apol- 
lodorus  and  Simonides.  Many  stories  were  told  about  his 
early  days — for  instance,  that  as  he  was  sleeping,  bees  came 
and  settled  on  his  lips. 

The  first  certain  fact  in  his  literary  career  is  the  com- 
position of  his  tenth  Pythian  ode  in  501  B.  a,  when  he  was 
only  twenty  years  of  age.     The  Pythian  games 
e  tenth         were   among    ^he    mos^    important   games   of 

Jf  y  liii8,ii.  *  •  m  i 

Greece,  and  this  ode  is  written  for  a  member 
of  the  powerful  Thessalian  house  of  the  Aleuadae.  It  is 
evident,  then,  that  Pindar  attained  great  reputation  at  an 
early  age,  even  though  there  may  have  been  some  special 

129 


130  GREEK  LITERATURE 

connection  with  Delphi  which  led  to  the  choice  of  him  as 
poet  of  the  games  celebrated  there.  Several  of  the  other 
early  poems  are  in  honor  of  Pythian  victories. 

Pindar  was  only  thirty  years  old  when  the  Persians 
first  invaded  Greece,  and  but  a  little  over  forty  at  the 
Pindar's  time  °^  the  battle  of  Salamis.     The  position  of 

political  Thebes,  the  greatest  Greek  city  which  favored 

views.  tne  Persians,  was  such  as  to  deprive  a  Theban 

poet  of  the  opportunity  offered  by  the  stirring  times  for 
patriotic  songs.  Pindar  was  at  any  rate  not  a  man  of 
action,  not  a  politician,  but  his  convictions  may  well  have 
been  on  the  side  of  his  native  town,  and  the  story  that  he 
encouraged  his  fellow  citizens  in  their  course  is  probably 
true.  Later,  when  the  Persians  had  been  driven  back, 
largely  through  the  energy  and  self-sacrifice  of  Athens, 
Pindar  recognized  and  praised  Athenian  greatness,  though 
the  story  that  he  was  fined  by  the  Thebans  for  so  doing  is 
doubtless  an  invention,  and  Pindar,  like  other  poets  after 
the  Persian  wars,  speaks  with  patriotic  pride  of  Plataea  and 
Salamis. 

In  the  years  following  the  retreat  of  the  Persians,  Pin- 
dar was  at  the  height  of  his  fame,  composing  odes  for  the. 
great  princes  of  all  parts  of  the  Greek  world:  Hiero  of 
Syracuse,  Theron  of  Acragas,  Arcesilas  of  Cyrene,  Chro- 
mius  of  Acragas,  and  others.  His  presence  in  person  was 
not  necessary  for  the  public  performance  of  his  poems,  and 
the  fact  that  he  composed  an  ode  for  a  ruler  of  Cyrene  or 
Syracuse  does  not  show  that  he  traveled  to  those  places. 
But  that  he  did  travel  is  certain,  and  he  probably  made 
many  voyages,  including  a  journey  to  the  court  of  Hiero  at 

Syracuse,  apparently  after  476  B.  c.     He  had 
in  ar  s  been  invited  to  Syracuse  by  Hiero  before,  but 

had  refused,  giving  as  his  reason,  "  I  wish  to 
live  for  myself,  not  for  others  " ;  but  in  the  end  he  yielded, 
and  may  have  spent  some  years  in  Sicily,  or  he  may  have  made 
the  voyage  several  times.     It  is  not  so  certain  that  he  vis- 


PINDAR  131 

ited  Arcesilas  at  Cyrene,  though  he  may  have  done  so,  and 
he  may  also  have  visited  a  Macedonian  king,  Alexander  I, 
son  of  Amyntas.  This  Alexander  I  was  an  ancestor  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  who  spared  Pindar's  house  in  the  de- 
struction of  Thebes,  on  account  of  the  relations  between 
his  ancestor  and  the  poet. 

The  latest  poem  of  Pindar  which  can  be  accurately 
dated  is  the  eighth  Pythian  ode,  written  for  an  Eginetan 
in  449  b.  c.  He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty  years — that  is,  in 
441 — at  Argos.  Pindar  was  married,  but  of  his  family  life 
nothing  is  known.  His  son,  Daiphantes,  was  at  one  time 
chosen  to  be  daphnephortis,  "  laurel-bearer,"  at  a  festival  of 
Apollo  at  Thebes,  and  Pindar  composed  a  hymn  to  be  sung 
by  a  choir  of  girls  in  the  procession. 

Pindar  was  a  famous  poet  during  his  life,  being  em- 
ployed by  the  wealthy  and  powerful  men  of  all  parts  of  the 
Greek  world.  His  only  real  rivals  were  Simonides  and 
Bacchylides,  who  were  also,  as  we  have  seen,  employed  by 
numerous  and  widely  scattered  patrons.  Almost  immedi- 
ately after  his  death  Pindar  seems  to  be  quoted  as  a  classic 
author,  and  yet  he  was  never  a  thoroughly  popular  poet, 
however  much  his  poetry  was  admired  by  the  rich,  the  cul- 
tured, and  the  learned.     His  poems  were  very 

Pmdar's  numerous,  and   were   divided   into   seventeen 

poems. 

books :  Hymns  (1),  paeans  (1),  dithyrambs  (2), 

prosodia  (2),  parthenia  (3),  hyporchemes  (2),  encomia  (1), 
threnoi  (1),  epihicia  (4).  Some  scolia  of  his  are  quoted, 
which  may  perhaps  have  been  included  among  the  encomia. 
Of  all  this  poetry  about  a  quarter  remains :  the  four  books 
of  epinicia,  divided,  according  to  the  place  where  the  vic- 
tory celebrated  in  each  was  won,  into  Olympian,  Pythian, 
Nemean,  and  Isthmian  odes,  and  about  three  hundred  frag- 
ments, some  of  which  are  of  considerable  length — in  fact, 
one  or  two  of  the  so-called  fragments  may  be  complete 
short  poems. 

The  epinicia  were  the  most  popular  of  the  poems  of 


132  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Pindar  in  antiquity,  and  it  is  fortunate  that  these  are  pre- 
served. Their  relative  popularity  is  probably  due,  how- 
ever, to  the  popular  interest  in  the  games  rather  than  to 
anything  in  the  character  of  the  .poems  themselves,  for 
Pindar  is  aristocratic  in  his  sympathies,  praising  rich  and 
noble  patrons ;  he  seems  to  prefer  obscure  myths  rather 
than  those  which  the  people  knew  and  loved,  his  language 
is  high-sounding  and  magnificent  rather  than  simple  and 
direct,  his  changes  of  subject  are  so  abrupt  that  the  hearer 
is  likely  to  lose  the  connection  of  thought  (if  any  really  ex- 
ists), and  his  religious  sentiments  are  often  such  as  would 
appeal  neither  to  the  superstitious  common  people  nor  to 
the  enlightened  pupils  of  the  philosophers  who  were  at  that 
time  beginning  to  influence  the  more  progressive  minds. 

The  public  games  were  among  the  most  important  in- 
stitutions of  Greece.     Almost  every  city  had  at  least  one 
festival  at  which  musical  or  athletic  contests 

were  held  in  honor  of  some  god,  and  many  of 
games.  .  °  J 

these  festivals  were  elaborate  and  brilliant. 
But  the  most  important  were  the  Olympic,  Pythian, 
Nemean,  and  Isthmian  games,  celebrated  at  Olympia,  Del- 
phi, Nemea,  and  Corinth.  Any  one  who  could  prove  his 
claim  to  be  called  a  Greek  was  permitted  to  take  part  in 
these  contests,  and  contestants  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
Greek  world.  Powerful  rulers,  like  Hiero  of  Syracuse,  or 
wealthy  individuals,  like  Megacles  of  Athens,  sent  their 
horses  and  chariots ;  Milo  the  wrestler  came  from  Croton  in 
Italy,  and  far-off  Cyrene  was  represented  by  the  chariot  of 
Arcesilas.  Each  contestant  appeared  as  the  representative 
of  his  city,  and  local  patriotism  demanded  that  each  repre- 
sentative be  equipped  and  supported  with  all  the  splendor 
the  city  could  afford.  From  the  various  cities  came,  be- 
sides the  contestants,  accredited  committees  to  take  part 
in  the  sacred  rites  and  to  join  in  the  worship  of  Zeus, 
Apollo,  or  Poseidon,  and  the  brilliancy  of  the  occasion 
drew  to  the  spot  thousands  of  spectators  from  far  and  near. 


PINDAR  133 

The  presence  of  the  multitude  attracted  a  great  concourse 
of  those  who  had  anything  to  show  or  to  sell.  Merchants 
exposed  their  wares,  historians  read  their  manuscripts, 
philosophers  set  forth  their  doctrines,  dancers  exhibited 
their  grace,  poets  and  musicians,  even  when  they  did  not 
take  part  in  the  musical  contests,  found  ample  oppor- 
tunity to  display  their  talents  before  a  sufficient  audience. 
These  great  gatherings  were  the  most  spectacular  events 
with  which  the  Greeks  were  acquainted,  and  at  the  same 
time  they  were  religious  festivals  hallowed  by  associations 
and  traditions  reaching  back  into  the  distant  haze  of  the 
mythical  childhood  of  the  Greek  race.  It  is  no  wonder, 
then,  that  the  victor  in  the  games  at  Olympia  or  Delphi 
was  received  by  a  deputation  of  his  fellow  citizens  when  he 
reached  his  native  town,  or  that  a  breach  in  the  walls  was 
made  that  he  might  enter  the  city  by  a  way  befitting  his 
newly  won  greatness.  It  is  true  that  in  Pindar's  time  the 
philosophers  were  beginning  to  protest  against  the  undue 
honors  paid  to  victorious  athletes  or  horse  owners,  but  their 
words  were  lost  among  the  plaudits  of  the  people.  The 
great  games  were  the  greatest  and  most  glorious  festivals 
of  Greece,  and  it  was  right  that  their  victors  should  be 
praised  by  the  greatest  masters  of  music  and  verse.  The 
popular  love  of  the  games  and  admiration  for  the  victors 
account  in  great  part  for  the  comparative  popularity  of 
the  epinician  odes,  and  the  religious  character  and  national 
importance  of  the  games  account  for  the  serious,  dignified, 
and  lofty  character  of  the  poems.  These  qualities  belong 
Dignified  ^°  ^ne  epinician  odes  of  Bacchylides  also,  but 
character  of  they  are  less  prominent  there  than  in  the 
epmicia.  poems  of  Pindar.     The  style  of  Bacchylides  is 

smoother,  and  his  language  clearer,  his  new  words  are  sim- 
pler in  composition  and  meaning,  his  thought  less  weighty 
and  less  difficult  of  expression,  but  serious  dignity  is  no 
less  a  quality  of  his  epinician  odes  than  of  Pindar's.  The 
occasion  demanded  seriousness,  and  an  undignified  epini- 


134  GREEK  LITERATURE 

cian  ode  would  be  as  improper  as  one  which  should  not 

make  mention  of  the  festival  or  the  victor.     The  shorter 

odes  were  in  some  instances  performed  immediately  after 

the  victory ;  the  longer  and  more  elaborate  were  intended 

for  performance  after  the  victor  reached  his  own  city. 

The  personal  character  of  Pindar  does  not  appear  very 

clearly  in  his  poems,  but  some  traits  are  visible.     He  was  a 

religious  man,  with  a  religion  rather  of  good 

^n  arts  works  and  outward  observance  than  of  faith, 

character.  t  ' 

though  his  good  taste  would  have  kept  him 
from  any  disrespectful  remarks  about  the  gods  even  if  he 
had  had  no  religious  reverence  for  them.  In  politics  he 
was  aristocratic  and  conservative,  but  his  political  utter- 
ances are  perhaps  somewhat  affected  by  the  fact  that  his 
patrons  were  for  the  most  part  aristocrats,  either  nobles  of 
oligarchical  cities  or  "tyrants."  He  was  apparently  impa- 
tient of  all  rivalry,  whether  his  rivals  were  Simonides  and 
Bacchylides,  whom  he  compared  to  two  screaming  ravens, 
or  the  philosophers  whose  teachings  were  beginning  to  com- 
pete with  the  utterances  of  the  poets  for  public  attention. 
He  was  not,  in  one  sense,  a  patriotic  poet,  in  so  far  as  he  did 
not  try  to  fire  the  courage  of  the  Greeks  against  the  foreign 
invader ;  but  he  was  proud  to  refer  to  the  great  deeds  of 
those  who  drove  back  the  Persian  hosts,  and  the  persistence 
with  which  he  pleads  for  right  and  justice  in  his  poems 
should  serve  to  protect  him  from  the  charge  of  lack  of 
patriotism. 

In  his  epinician  odes  Pindar  "  usually  starts  from  the 
mythical  splendors  of  the  victor's  family  or  city,  selects 
such  points  in  their  history  as  have  some  prac- 
tical bearing  upon  the  present  circumstances 

poems.  o       jr.  r 

of  his  hearers,  and  insists  upon  the  importance 
of  inborn  qualities  and  high  traditions.  Such  a  line  of 
argument  was,  of  course,  peculiarly  meant  for  aristocrats. 
He  then  passes  to  the  victor's  family,  enumerates  any  prizes 
gained  by  his  relations,  and  ends  with  some  sort  of  sum- 


PINDAR  135 

mary  or  moral  reflection." *  This  plan  is,  however,  greatly 
varied,  and  sometimes  almost  lost  sight  of.  There  is  no 
great  difference  between  the  poems  written  for  the  different 
festivals,  although  the  Olympic  odes  are,  on  the  whole,  some- 
what the  most  magnificent,  as  the  festival  at  Olympia  was 
more  magnificent  than  any  other,  and  the  Pythian  odes  are 
more  learned,  perhaps  because  Pindar  had  some  personal 
connection  with  the  Delphic  priesthood,  and  knew  more  of 
the  myths  and  early  history  of  the  place.  Pindar's  dialect 
is  much  the  same  as  that  of  Simonides  and  Bacchylides, 
the  modified  Doric,  which  had  become  the  regular  dialect 
of  choral  poetry,  nor  do  his  metres  differ  essentially  from 
those  of  his  contemporaries,  except  that  in  metre,  as  in  lan- 
guage, Pindar  is  more  difficult  and  complicated  than  Bac- 
chylides. 

The  first  Olympic  ode  is  dedicated  to  Hiero,  and  cele- 
brates the  same  victory  (in  476  b.  c.)  by  Pherenicus  in  honor 
of  which  Bacchylides  composed  his  fifth  epinician.  Pindar 
begins : 2 

Best  is  "Water  of  all,  and  Gold  as  a  flaming  fire  in  the  night 

shineth  eminent  amid  lordly  wealth ;  but  if  of  prizes  in  the  games 

thou   art   fain,  O   my  soul,  to  tell,  then,  as  for  no 
The  first 

.  bright  star  more  quickening  than  the  sun  must  thou 

search  in  the  void  firmament  by  day,  so  neither  shall 

we  find  any  games  greater  than  the  Olympic  whereof  to  utter  our 

voice :  for  hence  cometh  the  glorious  hymn  and  entereth  into  the 

minds  of  the  skilled  in  song,  so  that  they  celebrate  the  son  of  Cronus, 

when  to  the  rich  and  happy  hearth  of  Hiero  they  are  come ;  for  he 

wieldeth  the  sceptre  of  justice  in  Sicily  of  many  flocks,  culling  the 

choice  fruits  of  all  kinds  of  excellence :  and  with  the  flower  of  music 

is  he  made  splendid,  even  such  strains  as  we  sing  blithely  at  the 

table  of  a  friend. 

Then  the  poet  mentions  the  victory  of  Pherenicus,  won 
at  Pisan  Olympia,  where  Pelops  raced  with  GEnomaus  for 

1  Mahaffy,  Greek  Classical  Literature,  I,  i,  p.  244. 

2  Translation  by  Ernest  Myers. 
10 


136  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  possession  of  Hippodamia,  and  goes  on  to  tell  the  story 
of  Pelops,  who  was  buried  at  Olympia,  and  now  "  from  afar 
off  he  beholdeth  the  glory  of  the  Olympian  games."  The 
poem  ends  with  a  prayer  for  the  happiness  of  Hiero,  and 
the  hope  that  the  poet  may  celebrate  other  victories  for 
him.     The  closing  words  are  : 

Of  many  kinds  is  the  greatness  of  men ;  but  the  highest  is  to  be 
achieved  by  kings.  Look  not  thou  for  more  than  this.  May  it  be 
thine  to  walk  loftily  all  thy  life,  and  mine  to  be  the  friend  of  win- 
ners in  the  games,  winning  honor  for  my  art  among  Hellenes  every- 
where. 

This  poem  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  example  of  Pindar's 
composition.  Other  poems  give  perhaps  better  examples 
of  some  of  the  details  of  his  style.  So,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  first  Pythian  ode,  the  lines  on  the  power  of  music,  more 
especially  the  description  of  the  eagle  of  Zeus,  are  of  great 
beauty : 

O  golden  lyre,  thou  common  treasure  of  Apollo  and  the  Muses 

violet-tressed,  thou  whom  the  dancer's  step,  prelude  of  festal  mirth, 

obeyeth  and  the  singers  heed  thy  bidding,  what  time 

Passages  -with   qUivering    strings    thou   utterest   preamble   of 

choir-leading  overture — lo,  even  the  sworded  lightning 

or  immortal  fire  thou  quenchest,  and  on  the  sceptre 

of  Zeus  his  eagle  sleepeth,  slackening  his  swift  wings  either  side, 

the  king  of  birds,  for  a  dark  mist  thou  hast  distilled  on  his  arched 

head,  a  gentle  seal  upon  his  eyes,  and  he  in  slumber  heaveth  his 

supple  back,  spell-bound  beneath  thy  throbs.1 

This  eagle  is  as  beautiful  in  its  own  way  as  the  eagle  of 
the  fifth  ode  of  Bacchylides.  Elsewhere  2  Pindar  compares 
himself  to  the  eagle,  saying,  "  His  art  is  true  who  of  his  na- 
ture hath  knowledge ;  they  who  have  but  learnt,  strong  in 
the  multitude  of  words,  are  but  as  crows  that  chatter  vain 
things  in  strife  against  the  divine  bird  of  Zeus."  We  are  told 
by  the  scholiast  that  Simonides  and  Bacchylides  are  meant 

1  Translation  by  Ernest  Myers. 

2  Olymp.,  ii,  86  ff.     Translation  by  Ernest  Myers. 


PINDAR  137 

by  the  chattering  crows,  and  certainly  their  poems,  when 
compared  with  those  of  Pindar,  do  seem  less  original  and 
more  the  product  of  training.  So  little  remains  of  the  work 
of  Simonides,  however,  that  we  can  not  tell  how  much  Pindar 
owes  to  him,  and  in  some  instances  it  seems  that  Bacchylides, 
though  younger,  is  imitated  by  Pindar.  Probably  each  poet 
made  use  of  any  invention  of  the  other  which  pleased  him, 
but  of  the  three,  Pindar  had  the  most  original  mind. 

The  quality  most  admired  in  Pindar's  poetry  is  its  mag- 
nificence. His  words  are  weighty  and  dignified,  even  to 
the  extent  of  obscurity,  being  full  of  meaning  which  is  not 
always  clear  on  account  of  the  newness  of  the  compounds 
employed.  His  imagery  is  unusual,  his  description  shows 
keen  observation,  and  his  power  of  concise  expression  and 
hidden  allusion  is  as  remarkable  as  is  the  abil- 
Pmdar's  -^  sj10wn  by  Bacchylides  in  detailed  and  pleas- 

ing enumeration.  Pindar  is  harder  than  Bac- 
chylides to  read.  He  may  be  compared  with  Browning, 
while  the  ease  and  smoothness  of  Bacchylides  remind  one 
of  Tennyson ;  but  in  making  such  a  comparison  we  must 
remember  that  ihe  poems  of  Pindar  are  as  carefully  elabo- 
rated in  metre  and  arrangement  as  those  of  Bacchylides. 
There  is  nothing  in  them  which  even  remotely  resembles 
careless  writing.  Pindar  abounds  in  new  words  and  new 
constructions,  and  is  often  quoted  by  grammarians  on  that 
account.  Perhaps,  too,  his  interesting  grammatical  quali- 
ties may  have  something  to  do  with  the  preservation  of  so 
large  a  part  of  his  works.  But  for  us  he  is  of  the  greatest 
interest  as  showing  the  height  to  which  Greek  choral  poetry 
attained,  its  magnificent  and  brilliant  power,  its  elaborate 
technical  finish,  its  moral  and  ethical  quality,  and  its  beauty 
of  thought  and  expression.  - 

The  period  of  Simonides,  Pindar,  and  Bacchylides  is  the 
greatest  period  of  Greek  lyric  poetry.  Contemporary  with 
these  three  were  many  others,  some  of  whom  are  known  to 
us  by  name,  and  even  by  some  fragments. 


138  GREEK  LITERATURE 

o 

Lasus  of  Hermione  flourished  in  the  second  part  of  the 

sixth  century.     He  was  one  of  the  poets  invited  to  Athens 

by  Hipparchus,  and  is  said  to  have  been  one  of 

Lasus  of  Pindar's  teachers.     His-  hymn  to  Demeter  was 

Hermione.  J 

celebrated,  and  he  composed  various  kinds  of 

choral  poems.  But  his  fame  rested  chiefly  on  his  dithy- 
rambs. He  seems  to  have  introduced  the  dithyrambic  con- 
test at  Athens,  and  he  made  important  improvements  in 
the  dithyramb  itself. 

Timocreon  of  Ehodes  was  a  poet  of  much  vigor,  if  we 

may  judge  from  the  few  fragments  left  us. 
■RhTTe°U  °     ^"e  *s  known  chiefly  on  account  of  his  hatred 

for  Themistocles,  a  fact  which  fixes  his  date 
early  in  the  fifth  century  b.  c.1  His  scolia  were  his  best- 
known  poems. 

Tynnichus  of  Chalcis,  author  of  a  paean  highly  praised 

by  Plato ;  Lamprocles  of  Athens,  an  author  of 
Lamprocies,  dithyrambs  and  of  a  hymn  to  Athena ;  Apollo- 
Apoilodorus,  dorus  and  Agathocles,  said  to  have  been  teach- 
Agathocles,      erg  0f  pin(jar  •  and  Oydias,  a  composer  of  songs 

of  love,  belong  to  this  period,  but  are  little  or 
nothing  more  than  names  to  us. 

The  four  poetesses,  Corinna  and  Myrtis  of  Boeotia,  Tel- 
esilla  of  Argos,  and  Praxilla  of  Sicyon,  are  also  of  this 

period.     The  most  famous  was  Corinna,  born 

at  Thebes  or,  as  some  said,  at  Tanagra.  She 
was  older  than  Pindar,  and  is  said  to  have  contended  suc- 
cessfully with  him  for  prizes  in  poetry.  In  his  youth  Pin- 
dar is  said  to  have  composed  a  hymn  in  which  there  was  no 
myth.  Corinna  criticized  him  sharply,  and  the  young  poet's 
next  hymn  contained  too  much  myth,  whereupon  Corinna 
told  him  to  "  sow  by  the  handful,  not  with  the  whole  sack." 
Of  her  poems  we  know  little,  but  they  seem  to  have  en- 
joyed considerable  reputation.     Her  dialect  is  said  to  have 

1  See  Plutarch,  Themistocles,  chap.  xxi. 


PINDAR  139 

been  Boeotian,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  few  extant 
fragments.  To  what  classes  of  poems  her  works  belonged 
can  not  now  be  determined.  It  is  evident,  however,  that 
she  liked  to  tell  the  legends  of  Boeotia. 

Myrto,  or  Myrtis,  of  Anthedon,  is  said  to  have  contended 

unsuccessfully  with  Pindar.     Corinna,  in  one 

yr  °*  of  the  fragments,  says :  "  I  blame  the  sweet 

singer  Myrtis,  that  being  a  woman  she  once  entered  into 

strife  with  Pindar." 

Telesilla  of  Argos  is  cited  for  mythical  narratives  con- 
tained in  her  poems.     She  is  better  known  for 

Telesillci  / 

her  courage  and  patriotism  displayed  in  a  war 
between  Argos  and  Sparta  (494  b.  a). 

Praxilla  of   Sicyon   composed  heroic   dithyrambs,  the 
titles  of  two  of  which,  Achilles  and  Adonis,  are  preserved. 
She  also  composed  songs  to  be  sung  at  ban- 
quets.    Only  five  fragments  of  her  poems  are 
preserved,  and  these  amount  to  but  nine  lines  in  all. 

Choral  poems  are  ascribed  to  a  few  other  poets,  but  lit- 
tle is  known  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XII 

RELIGIOUS,  ORACULAR,  AND   MYSTIC  POETRY 

The  Delphic  oracle — The  sibyls — Bacis — Epimenides,  about  600 
b.  c. — Mysteries — Orphic  poems— -Onomacritus,  about  515  b.  c. — Musaeus 
— Abaris  and  Aristeas,  sixth  century  b.  c. 

The  poetry  so  far  discussed,  lyric  as  well  as  epic,  has 
something  of  a  religious  character  in  so  far  as  the  narrative 
is  usually  derived  from  the  myths  of  the  gods  and  heroes, 
while  the  poems  themselves  are,  in  many  cases  at  least, 
composed  for  public  festivals  in  honor  of  the  gods.  But 
alongside  of  this  poetry  were  other  expressions  of  religious 
thought  and  feeling,  less  important  from  a  literary  point 
of  view,  but  interesting  in  themselves  and  not  without  in- 
fluence upon  literature.  These  are  the  oracles,  the  mys- 
teries, the  Orphic  writings,  and  other  mystic  and  prophetic 
verses. 

The  oracle  at  Dodona  was  one  of  the  most  famous,  but 
none  of  its  recorded  utterances  possesses  any  literary  im- 
portance. Two,  in  hexameter  verse,  are  attributed  to  early 
times,  but  are  probably  spurious.  The  oracle  at  Delphi 
was  not  so  old  as  that  at  Dodona,  which  is 
oracle6  P  1C  mentioned  in  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey ;  at 
any  rate,  its  importance  dates  from  a  later 
time ;  but  for  centuries  it  was  the  greatest  oracle  of  the 
Greek  world,  the  source  from  which  information  about  the 
future  was  sought  by  Greeks  from  Asia,  Sicily,  and  Africa, 
as  well  as  by  kings  of  half-barbarian  lands,  such  as  Croesus 
of  Lydia.  The  Delphic  oracle  had  replies  for  all  questions, 
140 


RELIGIOUS,  ORACULAft,  AND  MYSTIC  POETRY     141 

whether  a  king  or  people  consulted  the  god  about  the  out- 
come of  a  war,  or  a  private  person  wished  to  know  what 
course  of  conduct  would  be  most  advantageous  in  his  busi- 
ness or  family  affairs.  Its  utterances  were  therefore  of 
very  unequal  worth,  some  being  carefully  considered  ex- 
pressions on  matters  of  state,  others  merely  ambiguous  jin- 
gles which  could  be  interpreted  after  the  event  in  accord- 
ance with  circumstances.  Most  of  these  utterances  were 
in  hexameter  or  iambic  verse,  but  as  the  use  of  prose  in 
literature  increased,  the  oracle  also  expressed  itself  in  prose. 
If  we  had  a  complete  collection  of  the  responses  of  the 
Delphic  oracle  we  could  gain  from  them  much  information 
about  the  thoughts  and  interests  of  the  Greeks,  but  the 
few  extant  specimens  serve  only  to  show  the  general  con- 
servative and  timid  policy  of  the  oracle,  and  have  little  lit- 
erary or  other  interest. 

Another  kind  of  prophecy,  not  connected,  as  was  that 
of  the  oracles,  with  temples,  was  that  of  the  sibyls.  The 
oldest  sibyl  known  to  tradition  was  called  He- 
rophile,  and  was  said  to  be  the  daughter  of 
Zeus  and  one  of  the  daughters  of  Poseidon.  A  second 
sibyl  of  the  same  name  was  supposed  to  have  lived  before  the 
Trojan  War,  and  some  of  her  prophecies  relating  to  the 
events  of  that  war  were  current.  Her  birthplace  was  said 
to  be  Mount  Ida,  in  the  Troad,  and  she  was  supposed  to  be 
the  daughter  of  an  Idaean  nymph  and  a  mortal.  She  was 
called  "  the  Erythraean  sibyl "  on  account  of  the  red  earth 
(the  Greek  word  erythros  means  red )  of  Marpessus,  where 
she  spent  most  of  her  life  and  died.  She  was  said  to  have 
traveled  in  various  regions,  to  have  visited  Claros,  Colo- 
phon, Delos,  and  Delphi.  The  sibylline  oracles  spread 
among  the  Greek  colonies,  and  the  number  of  sibyls  in- 
creased with  the  increase  in  the  number  of  the  prophecies. 
There  was  a  Libyan  sibyl,  a  Cumaean  sibyl,  of  Cumae  in 
Italy,  and  several  others.  These  personages  are  entirely 
mythical,  but  oracles  ascribed  to  them  were  current  in  the 


142  GREEK  LITERATURE 

fifth  century  b.  c.  and  later.  The  earliest  probably  belong 
to  the  sixth  century  B.  c.  The  story  of  the  sibylline  books 
at  Eome,  which  were  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  the  Cumsean 
sibyl,  is  familiar  enough.  At  a  later  time  the  Jews  of  Alex- 
andria published  under  the  name  of  Sibylline  Oracles  a  sort 
of  metrical  history  of  the  world,  which  is  chiefly  interesting 
as  showing  how  much  the  Alexandrian  Jews  of  the  first 
centuries  after  Christ  were  influenced  by  classical  forms  of 
expression.  The  sibylline  oracles  of  the  sixth  and  fifth 
centuries  before  Christ  have  disappeared  utterly. 

Another  class  of  prophets  were  the  chresmologists  or 
givers  of  oracles  not  connected  with  temples.  The  most 
famous  mythical  members  of  this  class  are 
Musaeus  (see  page  8)  and  Bacis.  The  latter  was 
said  to  be  a  native  of  Boeotia,  Arcadia,  or  Attica,  and  sev- 
eral of  his  prophecies  relating  to  the  Persian  War  are 
reported  by  Herodotus.  They  seem,  however,  to  have  been 
composed  after  the  events  to  which  they  refer.  In  style 
they  resemble  the  elegiac  verses  of  the  sixth  or  early  fifth 
century.  Several  other  chresmologists  are  known  by  name, 
and  some,  at  least,  of  these  are  historical  personages.  One 
of  the  most  important  was  Epimenides,  of 
Cnossus  in  Crete,  who  was  called  to  Athens 
by  Solon  to  purify  the  city  after -the  murder  of  Cylon  (page 
68).  Several  works  were  ascribed  to  him — a  collection  of 
oracles,  a  theogony,  a  treatise  on  sacrifices,  a  collection 
of  purificatory  songs  or  formulae,  and  even  some  prose 
works,  including  a  treatise  on  the  Cretan  constitution. 
Most  of  these  works  are  certainly  spurious,  but  the  the- 
ogony, with  its  account  of  the  birth  of  the  world  from  an 
egg,  may  have  been  genuine,  and  there  is  no.  reason  to 
doubt  that  Epimenides  was  the  author  of  purificatory 
songs  and  of  oracles,  although  those  which  went  under  his 
name  in  the  fifth  century  and  later  may  have  been  spurious. 
The  purificatory  songs  of  Epimenides  are  a  symptom  of 
a  kind  of  religious  feeling  which  was  no  longer  satisfied  by 


RELIGIOUS,  ORACULAR,  AND  MYSTIC  POETRY     143 

the  ordinary  mythology.  Mankind  desires  to  believe  in  a 
righteous  government  of  the  universe,  but  in  the  stories  of 
Greek  mythology  the  gods  reward  or  punish  their  personal 
friends  or  enemies  rather  than  those  who  really  deserve  re- 
ward or  punishment.  Mankind  desires  to  believe  in  a 
future  life  where  the  good  are  rewarded  even  if  the  wicked 
may  not  be  punished.  But  the  abode  of  the  departed  de- 
picted in  the  Odyssey  is  a  realm  of  shadows,  where  there  is 
no  happiness  possible,  a  realm  where  existence  is  so  unsat- 
isfactory that  the  ghost  of  Achilles  declares,1  "  Better  to  be 
the  hireling  of  a  stranger,  and  serve  a  man  of  mean  estate 
whose  living  is  but  small,  than  be  ruler  over  all  these  dead 
and  gone."  Men  also  wish  for  some  rules  of  conduct  or 
some  magic  formulae  by  which  they  may  be  enabled  to 
reach  the  happy  home  reserved  for  the  blessed  after  death. 
Nothing  of  this  sort  was  furnished  by  the  religion  of  Greece 
as  expressed  in  the  public  worship  or  the  received  mythol- 
ogy. But  all  these  desires  were  more  or  less  completely 
satisfied  by  the  mysteries. 

The  mysteries,  secret  forms  of  worship  to  which  only 

the  initiated  were  admitted,  were  numerous  in  Greece,  and 

were  derived  from  different  sources.    The  three 

;    .  most  important  were  the  mysteries  of  the  Ca- 

mysteries.  »       * 

biri,  at  Samothrace,  those  of  Dionysus  Zagreus, 

celebrated  by  the  Orphic  sect,  and  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
celebrated  in  honor  of  Demeter,  Persephone,  and  Iacchus, 
at  Eleusis.  The  mysteries  of  the  Cabiri  have  left  no  appre- 
ciable traces  in  literature,  but  the  Orphic  sect,  becoming 
united  with  the  followers  of  Pythagoras,  exercised  a  great 
influence  upon  Greek  thought  and  indirectly  upon  Greek  lit- 
erature. Orpheus  himself  (see  page  8)  is  a  purely  mythical 
character,  as  is  also  his  follower  Musseus  (see 
page  8).  Under  the  name  of  Orpheus  a  consid- 
erable body  of  poetry  was  current,  none  of  which  appears  to 
have  been  older  than  the  sixth  century  B.  c,  while  much  of 

1  Odyssey,  xi,  489  ff. 


144  GREEK  LITERATURE 

it  is  far  later.  Only  a  few  fragments  of  the  earlier  of  these 
Orphic  poems  are  extant,  and  they  possess  little  literary 
interest,  while  the  later  poems  (hymns  or  epics)  are  of  value 
only  because  they  show  how  the  mystic  Orphic  sect  con- 
tinued to  exist  until  about  the  time  of  Christ. 

Besides  the  poems  attributed  to  Orpheus  himself,  there 
were  other  Orphic  poems  attributed  to  writers  of  historical 
Onomacritus  times.  The  most  important  Orphic  writer  was 
and  other  Onomacritus  of  Athens,  who  is  said  to  have  been 
Orphic  poets.  one  0f  ^e  commission  appointed  by  Hipparchus 
to  edit  the  Homeric  poems.  He  is  said  to  have  written  Ora- 
cles and  Initiations ,  and  a  Titanography  and  a  Theogony  are 
also  ascribed  to  him.  He  is  supposed  to  have  inserted  these 
as  forgeries  in  his  collection  of  the  poems  of  Orpheus  and  to 
have  taken  similar  liberties  with  the  poems  of  Musseus  and 
even  of  Homer.  Other  Orphic  poets  are  Orpheus  of  Cro- 
ton  and  Zopyrus  of  Heraclea.  The  latter  was  the  author 
of  a  poem  called  the  Crater,  or  Mixing-Bowl,  in  which  the 
mixture  of  elements  from  which  the  world  was  formed  was 
probably  compared  to  the  mixture  of  wine  and  water  in 
the  bowl.  Other  poems,  Sacred  Discourses,  in  twenty-four 
books,  a  Descent  of  Orpheus  to  Hades,  a  Net,  and  a  Peplus 
or  Rote,  were  attributed  to  the  Pythagoreans  Cercops,  He- 
rodicus  of  Perinthus,  and  Brontinus  of  Metapontum.  These 
undoubtedly  contained  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  mingled 
with  those  of  the  Orphic  sect.  Pherecydes  of  Syros,  son  of 
Babys,  who  lived  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  B.  c, 
wrote  a  prose  theogony  evidently  much  colored  with  Orphic 
doctrine.  The  mythical  Linus  (see  page  8)  was  regarded  as 
the  author  of  many  poems  of  Orphic  Pythagorean  character, 
and  some  verses  have  been  preserved  under  his  name.  They 
seem  to  be  derived  from  a  theogony,  and  as  they  show  the 
influence  of  Heraclitus  (see  page  155)  and  Empedocles  (see 
page  159),  they  can  not  be  earlier  than  the  fifth  century. 

The  titles  of  the  Orphic  poems  mentioned  above  show 
in  part  at  least  what  their  contents  were.    They  told  of  the 


RELIGIOUS,  ORACULAR,  AND  MYSTIC  POETRY     145 

origin  of  the  world,  gave  precepts  for  purifications  required 
by  the  rules  of  the  sect,  prescribed  the  manner  of  life  and 
the  special  ceremonies  which  would  lead  to  holiness  and  to 

life  beyond  the  grave.  The  ideas  of  the  Orphics 
sect  °rphlC      were  in  Part  mystic  and  in  part  philosophical, 

and  they  also  attached  much  importance  to 
special  observances.  So  the  initiated  ate  raw  flesh  at  a 
sacred  banquet  in  memory  of  the  passion  (i.  e.,  the  suffer- 
ing) of  their  god  Zagreus,  but  at  other  times  abstained  from 
eating  meat ;  wore  only  white  garments,  and  conformed  to 
certain  other  rules  of  the  Orphic  life.  When  they  died  they 
were  buried  in  a  linen  shroud.  The  mystic  character  of  the 
teaching  of  Pythagoras  and  the  rules  he  prescribed  for  his 
followers  made  it  easy  and  natural  for  Pythagorean  and 
Orphic  believers  to  unite  and  for  their  doctrines  to  become 
confused. 

The  Eleusinian  mysteries  were  in  honor  of  Demeter  and 
Persephone  (usually  called  Cora  when  spoken  of  in  connec- 
The  Eleu-  ^on  w^n  Eleusis),  and  Iacchus,  who  was  after- 
sinian  ward  confounded  with  Dionysus  Zagreus.    The 

mysteries.  initiation  comprised  two  degrees:  the  Lesser 
Mysteries,  celebrated  every  February  at  the  hill  of  Agrae, 
near  the  Ilissus,  and  the  Greater  Mysteries,  celebrated  in 
September  at  Eleusis.  Before  the  Lesser  Mysteries  was  a 
purification,  the  nature  of  which  is  unknown.  Then  came 
the  real  initiation,  apparently  consisting  of  the  communi- 
cation of  sacred  formulae,  the  revealing  of  the  secret  names 
of  the  gods,  and  the  teaching  of  sacred  legends,  which  pre- 
pared the  initiated  to  understand  the  sights  of  the  Greater 
Mysteries.  At  these  there  seems  to  have  been  little  or  no 
teaching,  but  rather  direct  contemplation  of  the  ceremonies. 
For  ten  or  twelve  days  the  initiated  fasted,  drank  of  the 
sacred  drink  of  barley  and  water,  ate  bread  from  the  sacred 
basket,  heard  or  repeated  consecrated  formulae,  and  gazed 
at  the  silent  pantomimic  representation  of  the  sorrows  of 
Demeter  and  Persephone,  which  may  have  served  as  an  in- 


146  GREEK  LITERATURE 

direct  presentment  of  the  trials  of  human  life.  That  any 
clear  doctrine  of  immortality  was  taught  in  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries  is  not  certain,  for  their  secret  has  been  well  kept, 
but  that  they  profoundly  influenced  the  minds  of  the  ini- 
tiated is  beyond  question. 

The  great  mythical  poet  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries 
was  Musaeus  (see  page  8).  The  poems  attributed  to  him  are 
Oracles,  Remedies  for  Diseases,  Initiations, 
Purifications,  a  Theogony,  and  Hymns,  espe- 
cially a  Hymn  to  Demeter.  Of  all  these  only  a  few  verses 
are  preserved.  As  some  of  these  works  are  mentioned  by 
writers  of  the  fifth  century  B.  c,  they  were  probably  com- 
posed as  early  as  the  sixth  century. 

The  religious  movement  which  developed  the  great  im- 
portance of  the  mysteries  and  mystic  sects  in  the  sixth 
century  had  its  influence  also  upon  the  general  public, 
whether  initiated  or  not,  and  traces  of  this  influence  are 
visible  in  the  works  of  the  poets  and  philosophers  of  the 
sixth  and  fifth  centuries.-  The  half -mythical 
Arfsteas  Abaris,  who  is  said  to  have  written  a  poem  on 

Apollo  among  the  Hyperboreans,  and  Aristeas 
of  Proconnesus,  who  wrote  a  history  of  the  fabulous  one- 
eyed  Arimaspians,  both  belong  to  the  sixth  century,  and 
both  wrote,  if  Abaris  wrote  at  all,  poems  of  mystic  charac- 
ter. Other  poets  whose  works  are  not  mystical  show  traces 
of  the  influence  of  the  mystic  religious  movement  of  the 
times,  and  for  this  reason,  although  the  mystic  poems  of 
the  sixth  century  are  lost,  and  the  extant  fragments  show 
no  great  literary  excellence,  the  development  of  the  myste- 
ries and  of  mysticism  can  not  be  passed  by  in  silence. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    PROSE    LITERATURE  -  THE    EARLY 
PHILOSOPHERS 

Late  development  of  prose — The  Seven  Wise  Men — Pherecydes  of 
Syros,  about  550  b.  c. — Cadmus  of  Miletus,  early  sixth  century  b.  c. 
— Thales,  624(?)-547  (?)  b.  c— Anaximander,  611  to  about  545  b.  c.-An- 
aximenes,  about  560  b.  c. — Pythagoras,  second  half  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury b.  c. — Xenophanes,  about  600-500  b.  c. — Heraclitus,  born  about  540 
b.  c. — Parmenides,  born  about  515  b.  c. — Empedocles,  about  492-432  b.  c. 
— Leucippus,  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c. — Anaxagoras,  500-428 
b.  c— Diogenes  of  Apollonia,  about  450  b.  c— Democritus,  460  (?)-360 
b.  c. — Philolaus,  middle  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c. — Archytas,  middle  of 
the  fifth  century  b.  c. — Hippocrates,  about  430  b.  c. 

For  various  reasons  Greek  prose  literature  developed 
much  later  than  poetry.  In  the  first  place,  poetry  can  at- 
R  ■  |  tain  to  a  considerable  degree  of  excellence 
the  late  rise  without  the  aid  of  writing,  and  it  can  be  handed 
of  prose  liter-  down  by  tradition,  can  be  sung  and  recited,  for 
ature.  generations  before  reading  and  writing  become 

common  accomplishments.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
poems  were  thus  handed  down  among  the  Greeks  before  the 
introduction  of  writing  and  during  the  long  period  when 
writing  was  known,  to  be  sure,  but  was  the  accomplishment 
of  comparatively  few,  and  reading  was  a  matter  of  such  diffi- 
culty that  literature  had  to  be  cast  in  rhythmical  form  to 
appeal  to  the  ear  and  memory  of  the  people.  So  the  habit  of 
associating  the  poetic  form  with  all  literature  grew  up  and 
hindered  the  growth  of  prose.  Moreover,  the  subject-mat- 
ter of  early  Greek  literature,  the  myths  of  the  gods  and  he- 

147 


148  GREEK  LITERATURE 

roes,  the  feelings  of  the  poet,  encouragement  to  do  battle, 
praise  of  the  dead  or  of  victors  in  the  games,  lends  itself 
readily  to  expression  in  epic  or  lyric  verse.  There  were,  to 
be  sure,  lists  of  various  kinds  kept  in  the  temples,  and 
there  were  also  laws  engraved  upon  stone  or  bronze  tablets 
at  an  early  date,  but  these  are  not  literature.  Prose  litera- 
ture could  only  arise  when,  as  civilization  advanced,  men's 
minds  grew  more  reflective,  and  writers  wished  to  express 
collected  facts  and  deductions  drawn  from  such  facts  or 
speculations  based  upon  them.  This  stage  was  reached  in 
Greece  in  the  sixth  century  b.  c,  the  period  in  which  the 
beginnings  of  historical  and  philosophical  prose  were  made. 
Prose  literature  did  not  arise  without  previous  indica- 
tions of  the  state  of  mind  to  which  its  origin  was  due. 
Several  of  the  earliest  philosophers  and  scientists  wrote  in 
verse,  thereby  showing  the  power  which  the  poetical  form 
of  expression  still  held  over  men's  minds;  while  on  the 
other  hand  the  new  interest  in  the  realities  of  life  found 
an   expression    in   the    sayings  attributed  to 

TOse  Men.        the  Seven  Wise  Men>     The  list  of  the  seven  is 
not  given  in  the  same  form  by  all  the  ancient 

authorities,1  but  four  names  are  always  included :  those  of 
Thales,  Bias,  Pittacus,  and  Solon.  These  men  are  dis- 
tinguished as  men  of  affairs,  practical  men,  of  clear  and 
sound  judgment.  To  them  are  attributed  various  maxims, 
some  of  which  were  graven  upon  the  walls  of  the  temple  at 
Delphi,  maxims  of  practical  wisdom,  such  as  "  Know  thy- 
self," and  "  .Nothing  too  much."  The  Seven  Wise  Men  of 
any  of  the  lists  which  have  come  down  to  us  were  not 
strictly  contemporaries,  and  the  stories  of  their  meeting  in 
friendly  association  are  fabrications  of  a  later  time  (proba- 
bly of  the  fifth  century  B.  a),  but  there  is  in  them  this  ele- 

1  Plato,  Protagoras,  p.  343  A,  mentions  Thales,  Pittacus,  Bias, 
Solon,  Cleobulus,  Myson,  and  Chilon.  The  names  of  Periander  of  Cor- 
inth, the  Scythian  Anacharsis,  Epimenides  of  Crete,  and  some  others 
are  sometimes  given  instead  of  those  of  Cleobulus,  Myson,  and  Chilon. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  PROSE  LITERATURE  149 

ment  of  truth,  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  the 
time  to  which  the  Seven  Wise  Men  are  assigned,  there  was 
in  Greece  an  awakening  of  the  practical  and  investigating 
spirit,  which  had  much  to  do  with  the  origin  of  prose  liter- 
ature. Whether  the  fables  of  iEsop  were  written  in  prose 
as  early  as  the  sixth  century  is  doubtful  (see  page  86). 

Whether  history  or  philosophy  took  the  lead  in  the 
creation  of  prose  literature  can  not  now  be  determined  in 
the  absence  of  exact  dates  as  well  as  of  accurate  information 

about  the  contents  of  some  of  the  lost  works. 
ofsTros  GS      Pherecydes  of  Syros,  who  was  classed  among 

the  philosophers,  was  really  neither  an  historian 
nor  a  philosopher,  but  a  mystic  (see  page  144).  The  few 
fragments  of  his  writing,  the  title  of  which  appears  to  have 
been  Heptamychos  ( The  Sevenfold  Cavern,  or  something  of 
the  sort),  show  that  his  prose  was  much  affected  by  the 
poetic  style.    His  claim  to  be  the  first  writer  of  Greek  prose 

is  opposed  by  that  of  Cadmus  of  Miletus,  who 
of  mietus        *s  sa^  ^°  nave  written  a  work  on  the  Founding 

of  Miletus,  or  perhaps  on  Ionia  in  general.  No 
fragments  of  his  work  exist  in  the  original  form,  and  it  is 
even  somewhat  doubtful  whether  he  himself  ever  existed. 
If  it  is  true  that  he  explained  the  inundations  of  the  Nile 
as  the  result  of  the  melting  of  the  snow  on  the  mountains 
of  central  Africa,  he  showed  the  rational  and  scientific 
spirit  which  was  awakening  in  his  time — the  early  sixth 
century  b.  c.  But  whether  the  first  prose  writer  was  an 
historian  or  a  philosopher  matters  little.  It  is  well  to  keep 
the  two  classes  of  writers  distinct,  and  as  some  of  the  earlier 
philosophers  wrote  in  verse  it  is  natural  to  speak  of  them 
before  the  historians. 

The  word  "philosopher"  means  "lover  of  wisdom," and 
was  invented  by  Pythagoras  to  apply  to  himself  and  others 
who  devoted  themselves  to  study  and  investigation.  Before 
the  invention  of  this  word  such  men  were  called  sopJioi, 
"  wise  men,"  or  sophists,  "  men  versed  in  wisdom,"  and  these 


150  GREEK  LITERATURE 

words  continued  in  common  use  long  after  the  days  of 
Pythagoras.  The  Greek  philosophers  did  not  confine  their 
studies  to  one  kind  of  investigation,  but  the 
DhilosoDhers  w^om  they  sought  was  as  various  as  the  pow- 
ers of  their  own  minds.  We  shall  find  them 
therefore  studying  things  which  belong  in  modern  times  in 
the  domain  of  physical  science  or  of  statecraft  rather  than 
in  that  of  philosophy,  but  we  shall  also  see  that  at  any  one 
time  the  chief  attention  of  most  philosophers  was  devoted 
to  some  one  problem  or  series  of  problems,  the  stages  in 
the  development  of  philosophy  being  marked  by  the  rise  of 
new  problems  when  those  that  formerly  engrossed  attention 
have  been  solved  or  found  insoluble.  The  history  of  Greek 
philosophy  is  a  large  subject,  which  can  not  be  properly 
treated  in  a  handbook  of  the  history  of  Greek  literature ; 
but  the  works  of  the  philosophers  belong  to  literature  and 
can  not  be  understood  as  literary  productions  without  some 
knowledge  of  their  contents.  It  will  therefore  be  neces- 
sary to  devote  some  space  to  the  doctrines  of  the  early 
philosophers,  especially  as  those  doctrines  influenced  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  the  writings  of  contemporary  and 
later  authors.  But  as  the  works  of  the  early  philosophers 
have  disappeared,  leaving  only  a  few  fragments  quoted  by 
later  writers,  it  will  be  possible  to  treat  them  briefly. 

The  problem  which  chiefly  interested  the  earliest  Greek 

philosophers  was  the  same  which  had  interested  some  of 

the  still  earlier  poets — the  origin  of  the  universe. 

e  origin  o    jjesj0(j  an(j  0ther  poets  had  assumed  that  the 
the  universe.  r 

universe  existed  before  the  gods,  but  was  at 

first  mere  chaos;   that  then  one  god  after  another  came 

into  being,  and  that  in  the  end  the  world  was  regulated  by 

these  gods.     This  mythical  account  of  the  world's  origin 

was  no  longer  satisfactory  in  the  sixth  century,  and  the 

philosophers  tried  to  discover  a  more  rational  explanation 

of  things.    In  some  details  the  systems  of  some  of  the  early 

Greek  thinkers  resemble  what  we  know  of  the  beliefs  of 


THE  EARLY   PHILOSOPHERS  151 

the  Egyptians  or  the  Assyrians,  but  even  if  some  details 
were  suggested  to  the  Greeks  by  other  nations,  the  progress 
of  Greek  philosophy  is  so  regular  and  so  logical  that  it 
must  be  regarded  as  in  all  important  matters  original,  not 
imitated  or  imported.  Greek  philosophy  began  in  Ionia,  a 
region  more  open  to  Oriental  influence  than  was  European 
Greece,  but  Ionia  was  in  the  sixth  century  further  advanced 
in  civilization  than  European  Greece,  and  was  the  natural 
starting-point  for  the  new  development. 

The  first  of  the  philosophers  was  Thales  of  Miletus.  He 
is  said  to  have  lived  from  624  to  547  b.  c,  but  the  dates  are 
uncertain,  and  it  is  best  to  say  simply  that  he 
flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century. 
He  belonged  to  a  noble  family  of  Theban  origin,  which 
traced  its  ancestry  back  to  the  Phoenician  companions  of 
Cadmus.  He  traveled  in  Egypt,  where  he  learned  arith- 
metic, geometry,  and  astronomy.  On  his  return  he  seems 
to  have  paid  some  attention  to  public  affairs,  but  his  chief 
fame  was  as  a  philosopher  and  man  of  science.  He  is  said 
to  have  foreseen  that  there  was  to  be  an  abundant  harvest 
of  olives,  and  to  have  bought  up  all  the  oil-presses,  thus 
showing  how  easily  he  could  have  made  himself  rich  had 
he  desired  to  do  so.  He  is  also  said  to  have  predicted  an 
eclipse.  His  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  universe  was 
that  all  things  came  from  water  or  moisture,  and  he  is  said 
to  have  represented  the  earth  as  floating  on  the  water.  As 
Thales  appears  to  have  written  nothing,  his  doctrines  are 
known  only  by  imperfect  tradition  through  the  works  of  his 
successors. 

The  first  philosopher  to  express  his  doctrines  in  writing 
was  Anaximander  of  Miletus.  He  was  born  in  611  b.  c, 
and  was  living  in  547,  but  the  date  of  his  death 
is  unknown.  He  is  said  to  have  led  a  Milesian 
colony  to  Apollonia.  His  philosophical  work,  probably  en- 
titled On  Nature,  appears  to  have  been  written  in  his  old 
age.  He  regarded  the  Infinite  (jb  a7r«pov)  as  the  original 
11 


152  GREEK  LITERATURE 

substance  of  all  things.  This  was  eternal  and  ageless,  and 
embraced  all  the  worlds  and  heavens.  From  these  arose  by 
separation  all  existing  things,  and  to  these  they  returned  in 
accordance  with  necessity,  "paying  the  penalty  for  their 
injustice."  Anaximander  was  a  scientist,  and  invented  a 
gnomon  for  astronomical  observations,  made  a  globe  and  a 
map  of  the  world.  There  are  a  few  fragments  of  Anaxi- 
mander's  writing,  and  as  even  these  may  not  be  preserved 
to  us  in  his  exact  words,  little  can  be  said  of  his  style 
except  that  he  wrote  in  the  Ionic  dialect  and  used  some 
poetic  expressions. 

Anaximenes  of  Miletus  was  later  than  Anaximander, 
but  how  much  later  can  not  be  stated  exactly.  He  may 
have  been  merely  a  somewhat  younger  contem- 
porary. At  any  rate,  he  lived  in  the  first  half 
or  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  b.  c.  He  regarded  air  as 
the  original  substance,  and  thought  all  things  arose  from 
this  by  condensation  and  rarefaction.  Not  a  line  of  his 
work  On  Nature  exists,  and  all  we  know  of  his  style  is  that 
he  wrote  a  pure  Ionic  dialect. 

Pythagoras  of  Samos,  son  of  Mnesarchus,  is  said  to  have 

been  a  pupil  of  Pherecydes  of  Syros.     The  dates  of  his 

birth  and  death  are  unknown,  but  his  activity 

Pv£li£L£ror£LS 

belongs  to  the  second  half  of  the  sixth  century, 
and  he  died  before  500  b.  c.  He  is  said  to  have  traveled 
much,  but  some  of  his  journeys  seem  to  have  been  invented 
to  account  for  the  fancied  resemblances  between  his  doc- 
trines and  the  beliefs  of  Oriental  peoples.  In  middle  life 
he  left  Samos,  perhaps  banished  by  Polycrates,  and  went  to 
Croton,  in  Magna  Graecia,  where  he  founded  a  school  or 
sect,  which  became  so  powerful  at  Croton  and  Sybaris  that 
it  established  an  aristocratic  government  of  its  own.  This 
was  destroyed  by  a  revolution  toward  the  end  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  the  followers  of  Pythagoras  were  dispersed. 
Pythagoras  himself  was  probably  already  dead.  The  dis- 
persion of  his  disciples  did  not  put  an  end  to  his  school, 


THE  EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  153 

which  was  continued  in  the  fifth  century  by  Philolaus  and 
Archytas,  and  his  teachings,  more  or  less  modified  by  the 
Orphic  doctrines,  exercised  great  influence  for  many  years. 
Pythagoras  must  have  been  a  man  of  great  personal  power, 
and  the  impression  he  made  upon  his  disciples  is  shown  by 
the  story  that  he  was  a  son  of  Apollo,  and  that  he  received 
his  wisdom  from  the  Delphic  oracle.  His  disciples  were 
subjected  to  fixed  rules  of  conduct.1  Every  hour  of  the 
day  had  its  duty,  meals  were  taken  in  common  and  were  of 
simple  character,  frequent  examinations  of  the  conscience 
were  prescribed.  In  these  respects  the  Pythagorean  sect 
resembled  the  Orphic  sect,  and  in  some  measure  the  monks 
of  Christian  times. 

Many  points  of  the  teachings  of  Pythagoras  are  obscure, 
partly  because  he  left  no  writings,  and  partly  on  account 
of  confusion  with  Orphic  doctrines.  His  philosophical  the- 
ory starts  with  the  belief  that  the  fundamental  essence  of 
all  things  is  number.  Apparently  he  failed  to  perceive  that 
number  is  not  a  substance  but  a  mere  abstraction ;  but  his 
mistake  is  excusable  at  a  time  when  thought  on  such  sub- 
jects was  still  new.  He  associated  certain  moral  qualities 
with  number  in  a  way  which  now  seems  absurd ;  so,  for 
instance,  he  thought  the  number  four  corresponded  to  jus- 
tice. But  we  must  remember  that  the  relations  of  number 
to  tangible  things  and  to  ideas  must  have  seemed  wonder- 
ful in  an  age  when  arithmetic  and  geometry  were  in  their 
infancy.  Pythagoras  was  an  investigator  in  the  realm  of 
mathematics,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  his  philo- 
sophical theories  were  affected  by  his  mathematical  studies. 
How  the  doctrine  of  number  was  combined  with  the  belief 
in  the  transmigration  of  souls  (metempsychosis),  which 
Pythagoras  taught,  we  do  not  know,  nor  do  we  know  what 
the  nature  of  the  soul  or  of  deity  was  supposed  to  be  ac- 


1  The  late  poem  called  the  Golden  Verses,  falsely  ascribed  to  Pythag- 
oras himself,  gives  some  idea  of  these  rules. 


154  GREEK  LITERATURE 

cording  to  his  teaching,  bnt  that  reverence  for  the  gods 
was  inculcated  is  certain. 

Xenophanes  of  Colophon,  son  of  Orthomenes,  died  not 
much  before  nor  much  after  500  b.  c,  and  as  he  says  he 
wrote  verses  at  the  age  of  ninety-two  years,  he 
must  have  been  born  not  far  from  600  b.  c. 
When  the  town  of  Elea,  in  Lucania,  was  founded  by 
Phocseans  fleeing  from  the  Persians,  about  544  b.  c, 
Xenophanes  took  part  in  the  colonization  and  must  have 
spent  some  years  there,  for  it  was  there  that  his  school  of 
philosophy  (the  Eleatic  school)  had  its  seat.  As  has  been 
said  above  (page  77),  Xenophanes  was  a  great  traveler.  He 
was  not  only  a  philosopher,  but  a  poet,  and  his  philosoph- 
ical work  On  Nature  was  in  hexameter  verse.  Of  his  style 
something  has  been  said  above,  and  the  few  fragments  of 
the  philosophical  work  differ  in  metre  rather  than  in  style 
from  the  elegiac  poems.  As  a  philosopher  Xenophanes 
laid  great  stress  upon  the  uncertainty  of  human  knowledge. 
He  believed  that  the  origin  of  all  things  is  Being,  one  and 
immovable.  How  the  sensible  universe  arose  from  this 
immovable  Being  is  not  clear.  He  believed  that  God  is 
one,  though  he  sometimes  spoke  of  "the  gods"  in  the 
plural : 

One  God  there  is  among  gods  and  men  the  greatest,  neither  in 
form  nor  mind  like  mortals.  .  .  .  But  mortals  think  the  gods  are 
born  like  themselves  and  have  their  senses  and  voice  and  form. 

Elsewhere  he  says  that  if  cattle  and  lions  and  horses 
could  make  pictures  and  statues  they  would  represent  the 
gods  as  cattle,  lions,  and  horses.  He  also  accuses  Homer 
and  Hesiod  of  ascribing  to  the  gods  all  sorts  of  evil  deeds 
rife  among  men. 

Xenophanes,  while  asserting  the  immovable  unity  of 
Being,  seems  not  to  have  gone  so  far  as  to  deny  reality  to 
change.  But  if  Being  is  one  and  immovable,  the  changing 
phenomena  of  the  world  are  apparently  impossible.     Erom 


THE   EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  155 

the  opposition  between  immovable  Being  and  change  arose 
the  opposing  doctrines  of  Heraclitus  and  Parmenides. 

Heraclitus,  son  of  Blyson,  was  born  at  Ephesus,  not  far 
from  540  b.  c.  He  belonged  to  a  noble  family,  but  lived  in 
retirement,  refusing  to  take  part  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  city.  Popular  tradition  de- 
clared that  he  wept  at  all  things,  opposing  him  to  the 
laughing  philosopher,  Democritus.  His  philosophy  does, 
indeed,  show  the  vanity  of  human  life,  and  is  to  that  extent 
sad.  This  philosophy  was  expounded  in  a  work  sometimes 
called  On  Nature  and  sometimes  The  Muses,  in  three  parts, 
treating  respectively  of  the  universe,  political  and  moral 
science,  and  theology.  Heraclitus  regarded  the  senses  as 
untrustworthy  and  said  that  we  should  follow  reason. 
This  teaches  that  the  apparent  variety  of  phenomena  is  an 
illusion.  All  things  are  one.  But  this  one  is  not  fixed  and 
immovable,  as  Xenophanes  taught,  but  is  itself  mobility. 
All  things  flow,  and  nothing  remains.  Change  is  the  es- 
sence of  the  world.  Fire  changes  to  water,  water  to  earth, 
and  earth  again  to  fire.  So  all  apparent  oppositions  be- 
come a  harmony.  He  did,  to  be  sure,  regard  fire  as  the 
primal  element,  perhaps  because  it  is  the  most  mobile.  As 
fire  becomes  less  pure  it  grows  moist,  tending  toward 
water.  God,  he  thought,  was  a  perfect  soul,  of  pure  fire. 
The  human  soul  differed  from  the  divine  soul  only  in 
degree,  not  in  essence.  It  was,  he  thought,  a  divine  soul 
in  a  condition  of  death,  as  the  divine  soul  was  a  human 
soul  in  a  condition  of  immortality.  As  the  human  soul  is 
an  imperfect  fire,  or  a  dry  and  refined  air,  it  is  our  duty  to 
keep  it  as  dry  as  possible.  After  death  the  driest  and  most 
fire-like  souls  become  gods  or  heroes,  while  those  which 
have  become  damp  pass  into  an  inferior  condition.  Above 
the  gods  and  human  beings  alike  Heraclitus  places  the 
supreme  law  of  change,  which  he  calls  Justice,  Time,  or 
Zeus.  The  views  of  Heraclitus  were  new  and  hard  to 
understand.     They  were  expressed  in  concise  and  vigorous 


156  GREEK  LITERATURE 

prose,  which  the  ancients  found  difficult  of  comprehension — 
so  difficult  that  they  spoke  of  Heraclitus  as  "  the  obscure." 
So  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge  from  about  one  hundred  and 
forty  brief  fragments  preserved  as  quotations  in  the  works 
of  other  writers,  his  reputation  for  obscurity  is  derived 
rather  from  the  difficulty  of  his  thought  than  from  real 
obscurity  of  expression.  His  prose  is  not  thoroughly  artis- 
tic, but  is  terse  and  vigorous. 

Parmenides  of  Elea,  in  southern  Italy,  was  born  perhaps 
as  early  as  540  b.  c,  but  more  probably  about  515  b.  a,  of 

a  rich  and  noble  family.     In  his  old  age  he  is 
Parmenides.  . ..        ..  J  ° 

said  to  have  visited  Athens  and  to  have  talked 

with  the  then  youthful  Socrates.  He  is  the  direct  succes- 
sor of  Xenophanes  in  the  Eleatic  school  of  philosophy,  and 
may  have  been  his  personal  pupil.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
influenced  also  by  two  Pythagoreans,  Aminias  and  Diochae- 
tes.  Like  Xenophanes,  he  expressed  his  philosophy  in 
hexameter  verse.  His  poem  was  divided  into  three  parts : 
first,  a  mythical  introduction,  then  an  exposition  of  the 
things  of  truth,  and  last  of  the  things  of  opinion.  The  in- 
troduction (thirty-two  lines)  and  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  lines  of  the  doctrinal  parts  are  preserved.  He 
declared  that  Being  alone  exists,  and  that  change,  which 
implies  Not-being,  is  only  apparent.  Being  alone  belongs 
to  the  truth,  while  all  phenomena  of  change  are  things  of 
opinion.  Being  is  one  and  immovable,  indivisible,  without 
beginning  or  end.  Its  form  is  that  of  a  sphere.  These 
verities  are  known  only  through  reason,  while  phenomena 
are  subject  merely  to  conjecture.  He  accounted  for 
phenomena  by  the  assumption  of  two  principles,  Light  and 
Darkness,  which  are  attracted  to  each  other  by  Love.  The 
details  of  this  part  of  his  system  are  not  well  enough  pre- 
served to  be  clear.  His  doctrine  of  Being  is  that  of 
Xenophanes  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion,  which  makes 
the  reality  of  change  impossible.  In  style,  Parmenides 
joins    great  argumentative  ability  and  power  of  logical 


THE  EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  157 

reasoning  with  real  poetic  fire.  He  is  the  first  philosopher 
to  argue  in  support  of  his  views,  and  at  the  same  time  he  is 
more  of  a  poet  than  most  of  the  philosophers  who  wrote  in 
verse.  His  doctrines  were  further  elaborated  by  his  suc- 
cessors Zeno  of  Elea  and  Melissus  of  Samos,  but  these 
men,  although  important  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  are 
of  little  importance  in  the  history  of  literature.  We  need 
only  remark  that  Zeno  developed  dialectic,  that  is,  the 
practise  of  logical  argument,  beyond  the  point  reached  by 
Parmenides. 

The  introduction  of  the  poem  of  Parmenides  begins  as 
follows : 1 

The  steeds  which  bear  me,  and  have  brought  me  to  the  bounds 
of  my  desire,  since  they  drew  and  carried  me  into  the  way  renowned 
of  Her  who  leads  the  wise  man  to  all  knowledge — on  that  road  I 
journeyed,  on  that  road  they  bore  me,  those  steeds  of  thought  that 
whirl  the  car  along.  But  maidens  showed  the  way,  sun-born  maids, 
who  left  the  halls  of  gloom  and  brought  us  to  the  light,  withdraw- 
ing with  their  fingers  from  their  brows  the  veils. 

The  chariot  proceeds  to  the  palace  of  wisdom,  of  which 
Justice  holds  the  keys.  The  poet  is  received  by  the  god- 
dess of  wisdom,  who  promises  to  teach  him  the  things  of 
truth  and  the  things  of  opinion,  and  the  remainder  of  the 
poem  is  in  the  form  of  a  lecture  by  the  goddess.  The 
mythical  form  is  well  conceived  and  well  carried  out,  and 
if  the  poem  seems  to  some  modern  critics  frigid  or  even 
dull,  it  is  partly  because  the  allegorical  symbolism  which 
was  an  interesting  novelty  in  the  early  fifth  century  B.  c. 
has  lost  its  interest  in  our  times. 

The  systems  of  Heraclitus  and  Parmenides  had  put  in 
the  clearest  light  the  opposition  between  the  constant 
change  of  phenomena  and  the  constant  fixity  of  Being.  If 
anything  is,  it  can  not  become  something  else  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  what  it  is.     Change  involves  the  reality  of  Not- 

1  Symonds's  translation. 


158  GREEK  LITERATURE 

being.  But  how  can  Not-being  exist  ?  Apparently  the  two 
systems  can  not  be  reconciled ;  and  yet  the  world  as  it  is 
can  not  be  satisfactorily  explained  by  either  system  alone. 
At  about  the  same  time  Empedocles,  Leucippus,  Anaxag- 
oras,  and  Diogenes  of  Apollonia  undertook  the  reconcili- 
ation of  the  two.  All  of  these  men  were  born  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fifth  century,  but  the  exact  dates  of  their  births 
and  the  order  in  which  their  works  followed  each  other  are 
not  certainly  known. 

Empedocles  of  Acragas  (Agrigentum)  was  born  about 
492  b.  c.  He  was  younger  than  Anaxagoras,  but  was  earlier 
than  he  as  an  author.  He  was  of  noble  birth, 
was  wealthy,  and  of  great  personal  beauty  and 
dignity.  He  studied  the  works  of  the  earlier  philosophers, 
and  was  also  an  adept  in  medicine  and  in  magic.  When 
the  city  of  Selinus  was  troubled  with  an  epidemic,  he 
drained  the  neighboring  marshes  and  restored  the  citizens 
to  health.  He  was  then  worshiped  as  a  god  by  the  Seli- 
nuntines,  and  accepted  this  worship  as  his  due.  He  used  to 
dress  in  long  and  gorgeous  robes,  and  walked  about  shod 
with  sandals  of  brass.  And  this  was  not  mere  theatrical 
display  or  effrontery  on  his  part.  His  mind  was  deeply 
imbued  with  mysticism,  and  he  believed  in  an  intimate  re- 
lationship between  the  human  and  the  divine,  with  the 
result  that  he  really  believed  himself  to  be  a  god,  or  some- 
thing very  near  it.  About  his  death,  which  took  place 
when  he  was  sixty  years  old,  there  were  various  stories. 
According  to  one,  he  disappeared  mysteriously  after  a  vio- 
lent storm,  being  transferred  to  dwell  among  the  gods ;  ac- 
cording to  another,  he  threw  himself  into  the  crater  of 
Mount  Etna,  which  cast  up  one  of  his  brazen  sandals. 

Empedocles  wrote  Poems  of  Purification,  to  free  men's 
souls  from  the  burden  of  sin ;  a  long  poem,  probably  in  three 
books,  On  Nature,  setting  forth  his  philosophical  doctrine ; 
a  poem  on  Medicine,  and  various  other  less  important  poems. 
In  all  there  were  several  thousand  lines,  of  which  about 


THE  EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  '  159 

four  hundred  and  fifty  are  preserved.  All  these  works  were 
in  hexameter  verse.  The  system  of  Empedocles  was  a  com- 
bination of  those  of  the  Eleatic  school  and 
Em'edooies  Heraclitus,  with  some  features  of  Pythagorean 
doctrine.  He  assumed  four  elements,  fire,  air, 
water,  and  earth,  which  he  considered  immutable  and  eter- 
nal, like  the  One  or  Being  of  the  Eleatics,  and  accounted 
for  change  by  the  mixture  of  these  four,  which  he  thought 
were  united  and  separated  by  Love  and  Strife  or  Discord. 
The  four  elements  were  originally  massed  together  in  the 
form  of  a  sphere.  This  sphere  is  maintained  by  Love, 
while  Strife  tends  constantly  to  destroy  it.  The  struggle 
is  to  continue  forever,  Strife  destroying  the  sphere  and 
Love  forming  it  anew.  This  is  the  explanation  of  all 
change.  The  details  of  this  system  were  carefully  elab- 
orated, but  need  not  detain  us.  He  believed  in  the  trans- 
migration of  souls,  and  in  other  respects,  as  in  the  general 
tone  of  piety  pervading  his  doctrine,  he  shows  the  influence 
of  Pythagoras.  His  gods  were  not  eternal,  but  very  long 
lived.     He  regarded  man  as  a  god  in  exile. 

The  poetry  of  Empedocles  is  brilliant,  full  of  enthusiasm, 
graceful,  and  ingenious  in  expression.     He  argues  less  than 
Parmenides,  but  has  the  gift  of  expressing  his  thoughts 
clearly  and  accurately.     Clearness  is  for  him  the  first  req- 
uisite.    "  For  twice  and  three  times  one  must 

Em  edocles      sa^  wna^  *s  g°°&  "  *s  one  °f  n*s  expressions ; 
but  his  own  style  is  such  that  he  does  not  often 
need  to  repeat.     His  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  things  begins 
with  these  words : 

A  double  saying  I  will  utter;  for  at  one  time  One  grows  into 
being  from  many,  and  again  many  come  to  be  from  One.  Twofold 
is  the  birth  of  mortal  things,  twofold  their  destruction ;  for  the  union 
of  all  brings  forth  and  destroys  the  one,  and  the  other  is  broken  and 
scattered  when  they  are  again  sundered ;  and  these  never  cease  con-' 
tinually  changing,  sometimes  uniting  through  Love,  all  in  one,  at 
other  times  being  borne  each  apart  through  the  hatred  of  Strife. 


160  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  beginning  of  the  introduction  of  the  poem  On  Na- 
ture states  his  view  of  the  connection  between  the  gods 
and  mortal  beings,  which  is  followed  by  the  doctrine  of 
metempsychosis  : 

It  is  a  thing  of  necessity  and  an  ancient  decree  of  gods,  eternal, 
sealed  with  mighty  oaths,  whenever  any  one  through  crime  has  de- 
filed his  limbs  with  murder,  or  rashly  sinning  has  become  forsworn 
(one  of  the  spirits  who  possess  long  life),  for  thrice  ten  thousand 
years  he  wanders  far  from  the  blessed  ones,  becoming  in  that  time 
all  sorts  of  mortal  beings,  passing  through  the  toilsome  paths  of 
life,  as  I  now  am  an  exile  and  a  wanderer  from  the  gods,  yielding 
to  mad  Strife.  .  .  .  For  I  already  have  been  a  youth  and  a  maid 
and  a  bush  and  a  bird  and  a  mute  fish  in  the  sea. 

Leucippus,  a  contemporary  of  Empedocles  and  Anax- 
agoras,  was  a  native  of  Miletus,  or  of  Elea,  and  is  said  to 
have  been  a  pupil  of  Parmenides.  He  believed 
eucippus.  ^at  matter  was  composed  of  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  particles  so  small  that  they  could  not  be  divided, 
which  he  called  atoms.  The  different  forms  of  matter  were 
made  by  different  arrangements  of  atoms.  Alongside  of 
the  atoms  and  matter  formed  of  atoms  he  assumed  also 
empty  space  or  a  void.  No  writings  of  Leucippus  are  pre- 
served— in  fact,  it  is  not  certain  that  he  ever  wrote  anything. 
His  doctrine  was  elaborated  by  Democritus  and  later  was 
adopted  by  Epicurus. 

Anaxagoras  of  Clazomenae  was  born  in  500  B.  c.  About 
464  he  went  to  Athens,  where  he  became  the  friend  of 
Pericles.  In  434  or  433  he  was  banished  from 
Athens  on  a  charge  of  impiety,  and  went  to 
Lampsacus,  where  he  died  in  428.  Several  works  were  as- 
cribed to  him,  but  his  chief  work,  On  Nature,  is  the  only 
one  of  which  fragments  are  preserved.  Anaxagoras  believed 
that  matter  was  composed  of  an  infinite  number  of  parti- 
cles, infinitely  small  and  always  capable  of  division.  These 
particles  are  not  all  of  the  same  material,  like  the  atoms  of 
Leucippus,  nor  of  four  elements,  such  as  Empedocles  as- 


THE  EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  161 

sumed,  but  each  has  its  own  qualities.  There  are  gold 
particles,  stone  particles,  bone  particles,  etc.  All  these  are 
arranged  by  Mind  or  Intellect.  This  is  the  great  innova- 
tion of  Anaxagoras.  He  clearly  divides  mind  from  matter. 
In  the  beginning  all  things  were,  he  thought,  an  indistin- 
guishable mass,  until  Mind  arranged  and  grouped  the  par- 
ticles so  as  to  form  the  visible  world.  He  believed  that  the 
moon  was  inhabited,  and  that  the  sun  was  somewhat  larger 
than  the  Peloponnesus.  He  was  not  only  a  metaphysician, 
but  also  a  man  of  science.  He  perceived  that  eclipses  of 
the  sun  are  caused  by  the  moon,  which  comes  between  the 
sun  and  the  earth.  His  views  of  life  seem  to  have  been 
high  and  noble,  but  he  published  no  system  of  ethics.  His 
style  is  clear  and  vigorous,  but  without  great  variety,  cool, 
passionless,  concise,  and  sententious.  Though  only  seven- 
teen fragments  are  preserved,  they  are  long  enough  to  give 
us  a  pretty  good  idea  of  his  style  : 

All  things  were  together,  infinite  in  number  and  smallness ;  for 
the  smallness  was  infinite.  And  when  all  things  were  together 
nothing  was  clear  on  account  of  smallness ;  for  air  and  ether  encom- 
passed all  things,  both  being  infinite,  for  these  are  most  largely 
present  in  all  things,  both  in  respect  to  the  number  of  particles  and 
to  volume. 

Everything  contains  particles  of  every  kind,  the  Mind 
alone  being  pure  and  unmixed : 

All  the  other  things  contain  a  share  of  everything,  but  Mind  is 
infinite  and  self-sufficient  and  is  not  mixed  with  anything,  but  is 
absolutely  alone  by  itself.  For  if  it  were  not  by  itself,  but  were 
mixed  with  anything  else,  it  would  have  a  share  of  all  things  if  it 
were  mixed  with  any ;  for  in  everything  there  is  a  share  of  every- 
thing, as  I  have  said  before ;  and  the  things  mixed  with  it  would 
hinder  it,  so  that  it  would  not  control  anything,  as  it  does  now  that 
it  is  alone  by  itself.  For  it  is  the  lightest  of  all  things,  and  the  purest, 
and  it  has  all  knowledge  about  all  things  and  has  the  greatest  power. 

The  great  defect  in  the  teaching  of  Anaxagoras  is  that 
he  apparently  failed  to  attribute  to  Mind  any  continued 


162  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  repeated  influence  on  the  world.  Mind  caused  the 
particles  to  be  arranged  in  the  beginning,  and  started  the 
world  on  its  course  of  life,  but  after  that  had  no  further 
influence. 

Diogenes  of  Apollonia,  who  was  somewhat  younger  than 
Anaxagoras,  went  back  to  the  doctrine  of  Anaximenes  and 

regarded  air  as  the  original  substance.  His 
^iogrenes  o       doctrine  is  of  little  importance,  but  he  wrote 

clear  and  simple  prose,  and  is  for  this  reason 
to  be  mentioned.  "  In  beginning  every  discourse  it  seems 
to  me  to  be  necessary  to  make  the  starting-point  free  from 
ambiguity  and  the  language  simple  and  dignified  "  are  the 
opening  words  of  his  book,  and  the  fragments  preserved 
show  that  he  followed  the  rule  thus  laid  down.  His  life 
extends  far  into  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century,  and 
chronologically  he  belongs  to  the  Attic  period  of  Greek  lit- 
erature. His  doctrine,  however,  and  his  use  of  the  Ionic 
dialect  place  him  among  the  earlier  philosophers. 

Democritus  of  Abdera  also  belongs  chronologically  to  the 
Attic  period.   He  was  born  about  460,  and  died  at  a  very  great 

age — over  one  hundred  years  according  to  some 

writers,  not  far  from  360  B.  c.  He  was  often 
called  "  the  laughing  philosopher,"  as  Heraclitus  was  called 
"  the  weeping  philosopher."  He  traveled  extensively,  ob- 
serving nature  and  talking  with  learned  men.  He  was  at 
Athens,  where  he  seems  to  have  aroused  little  interest,  for  his 
studies  were  not  in  line  with  the  teachings  of  the  sophists  or 
of  Socrates.  His  works,  written  in  Ionic  Greek,  were  numer- 
ous, relating  to  all  branches  of  philosophy.  Only  scattered 
fragments  have  been  preserved.  He  accepted  and  devel- 
oped the  doctrine  of  Leucippus,  that  the  world  consisted 
of  atoms  and  void  space,  the  difference  between  things 
being  caused  by  the  different  arrangement  and  qualities  of 
atoms.  The  soul,  he  thought,  was  a  fire  animating  the  body. 
There  were  no  real  gods,  but  there  might  be  souls  finer 
than  those  of  men,  which  would  be  nearly  equivalent  to 


THE  EARLY  PHILOSOPHERS  163 

gods.  In  morals,  he  taught  that  happiness  should  be 
sought,  but  by  moderation  of  the  desires,  not  by  indul- 
gence. In  many  points  his  atomic  theory  of  the  universe 
resembles  modern  scientific  theories. 

At  about  the  time  when  Democritus  was  developing  the 
doctrines  of  Leucippus,  a  group  of  Pythagoreans  in  Magna 

Grsecia  revived  and  developed  the  doctrines  of 
^ol^gsa,nd  Pythagoras.     It  will  be   enough  to  mention 

Philolaus  and  Archytas  of  Tarentum.  Philo- 
laus  is  said  to  be  the  earliest  writer  among  the  Pythagore- 
ans. He  traveled  much,  and  spent  some  time  at  Thebes, 
where  Simmias  and  Cebes,  afterward  devoted  to  Socrates, 
were  his  pupils.  .  His  book  On  Nature,  written  in  Doric 
Greek,  was  an  exposition  of  Pythagorean  doctrine.  Archy- 
tas was  a  noted  man  at  Tarentum,  distinguished  as  a  gen- 
eral, and  for  his  practical  wisdom  and  morality.  Numer- 
ous works  on  philosophy  and  mathematics  were  attributed 
to  him,  but  of  these,  as  of  the  work  of  Philolaus,  only  frag- 
ments exist.  An  ode  of  Horace *  informs  us  that  Archytas 
was  drowned  in  a  shipwreck  on  the  Apulian  coast. 

The  study  of  medicine  is  related  to  the  physical  re- 
searches of  the  Ionic  philosophers,  and  the  literature  per- 
taining to  it  may  therefore  be  mentioned  here.  Every 
temple  of  Asclepius  had  its  attendant  physicians,  who  prac- 
tised surgery,  faith  cure,  and  such  empirical  treatment  as 
they  knew.  One  of  the  most  famous  temples  of  Asclepius 
was  at  Cos,  and  here  it  was  that  Hippocrates, 
the  most  famous  physician  of  the  fifth  century 
b.  c,  was  born.  He  was  an  Asclepiad — that  is,  he  belonged 
to  the  family  of  hereditary  priests  or  ministers  of  Ascle- 
pius. The  date  of  his  birth  is  unknown,  but  he  seems  to 
have  flourished  in  the  early  years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War. 
He  is  said  to  have  died  at  Larisa,  in  Thessaly,  at  an  ad- 
vanced age.     A  collection  of  sixty-two  works  of  various 

1  Odes,  i,  28. 


164  GREEK  LITERATURE 

length  has  been  handed  down  under  his  name,  but  the 
works  themselves  are  evidently  of  different  dates,  for  the 
most  part  later  than  Hippocrates,  though  sonie  may  be 
earlier.  Whether  any  of  the  extant"  works  is  the  work  of 
Hippocrates  himself  is  uncertain.  They  are  written  in 
Ionic  Greek,  and  show  that  the  early  physicians  were  careful 
observers  and  usually  sensible  practitioners,  though  their 
theories  were  often  absurd.  After  Hippocrates,  his  son-in- 
law,  Polybius,  his  grandsons  and  great-grandsons,  are  said 
to  have  continued  the  Coan  school  of  medicine. 


CHAPTEK   XIV 

THE  LOGOGRAPHERS 

Cadmus  of  Miletus,  about  550  b.  c. — Acusilaus,  second  half  of  the 
sixth  century  b.  c. — Scylax,  toward  500  b.  c. — Hecataeus,  540  (?)  -470  (?) 
B.C. — Pherecydes  of  Leros, about  500  b. c. — Charon,  about  500  B.C. — 
Xanthus,  about  500-450  b.  c. — Hellanicus,  about  450  b.  c. — Antiochus, 
about  450  b.  c. — Other  logographers — Stesimbrotus,  about  425  b.  c. 

The  earliest  writers  of  history  are  usually  called  logo- 
graphers, a  word  which  primarily  means  writers  of  prose. 
The  words  history  and  historian  are  first  applied  to  Herodo- 
tus and  his  work.  The  logographers  had,  as  a  rule,  little 
or  no  appreciation  of  history  as  a  whole,  or  of  any  great 
movements  in  history,  but  wrote  annals  of  various  cities, 
with  special  attention  to  the  early  myths  and  legends. 
Some  of  them  also  described  places  and  countries.  Little 
is  known  of  most  of  them,  and  few  fragments  of  their 
works  are  preserved. 

Cadmus  of  Miletus  is  the  earliest  known  logographer, 

and  so  little  is  known  of  him  that  his  very  existence  has 

been  doubted.     He  appears  to  have  lived  about 

KUrtu  °f  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  B.  c,  and  a  work 
entitled  The  Founding  of  Miletus  is  ascribed  to 

him.     He  is  for  us  little  more  than  a  name. 

Somewhat  more  is  known  of  Acusilaus.     He  was  born 

at  the  little  town  of  Argos  in  Bceotia,  and  lived  in  the  sec- 
ond half  of  the  sixth  century.  He  was  a  sort 
of  prose  Hesiod,  and  wrote  a  work  entitled 

Genealogies,  in  several  books.     He  began  with  the  primeval 

Chaos,  told  of  the  origin  of  the  gods,  and  passed  on  to  the 

165 


166  GREEK  LITERATURE 

heroes.     At  what  point  his  work  ended  is  unknown.     He 
inserted  many  local  myths  in  his  work,  and  is  referred  to  by 
later  writers  when  they  discuss  the  origin  of  such  legends. 
Scylax,  of  Caryanda,  in  Caria,  was  an  admiral  in  the 
service  of  Darius  about  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.     He 

was  sent  by  Darius  to  explore  the  coast  of  the 
Scylax 

Indian  Ocean,  and  wrote  a  Periplus,  or  de- 
scription of  that  coast.  His  work  was  lost  at  an  early  date, 
and  the  Periplus  preserved  under  his  nalne  is  a  work  of 
the  fourth  century  b.  c. 

Hecataeus  of  Miletus  is  the  most  important  of  the  logo- 
graphers.     He  was  born  about  540  b.  c,  of  a  noble  family, 

which  claimed  descent  from  the  gods.     His 

father's  name  was  Hegesander.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Ionic  revolt  Hecataeus  advised  the  Ionians 
against  the  war  with  Persia,  and  after  their  first  reverses  he 
urged  them  to  fortify  the  island  of  Leros  as  a  base  of  op- 
erations. In  both  cases  his  advice  was  rejected,  but  after 
their  final  defeat  he  interceded  for  them  with  the  satrap 
Artaphernes.  He  wrote  two  works,  Genealogies  and  a  De- 
scription of  the  Earth.  The  Genealogies,  in  at  least  four 
books,  began  with  the  story  of  Deucalion  and  the  flood,  and 
continued  with  the  tale  of  the  heroes.  This  is  mythology, 
not  history.  Yet  Hecataeus  exercised  some  critical  judg- 
ment even  in  this  work,  the  opening  words  of  which  are  : 

Hecatasus  of  Miletus  speaks  thus:  "I  write  these  things  as  they 
seem  to  me  to  be  true ;  for  the  stories  of  the  Greeks  are  many  and 
ridiculous,  as  it  seems  to  me." 

The  extant  fragments  do  not,  however,  show  clearly  how 
he  made  the  myths  less  "  ridiculous  "  than  those  who  had 
told  them  before  him.  The  Description  of  the  Earth  con- 
sisted of  two  books,  Europe  and  Asia.  More  than  three 
hundred  fragments,  for  the  most  part  very  brief,  exist  of  a 
work  attributed  to  Hecataeus,  but  their  authenticity  has  been 
doubted.     They  are,  however,  probably  for  the  most  part 


THE  LOGOGRAPHERS  167 

authentic,  but  they  are  so  brief  as  to  give  us  little  idea  of 
the  style  of  the  Description.  In  this  work  Hecataeus  em- 
bodied the  observations  he  had  made  in  Egypt,  Persia, 
Pontus,  Thrace,  and  the  Greek  world,  for  he  traveled  in  all 
these  regions,  probably  between  516  and  500  b.  c.  His  style 
is  said  to  have  been  clear  and  simple,  but  less  attractive 
than  that  of  Herodotus.  His  language  was  pure  Ionic,  not 
mixed,  as  was  that  of  Herodotus,  with  epic  and  other  ele- 
ments. We  are  also  told  that  he  sometimes,  when  speaking 
of  a  person,  put  himself  in  the  attitude  of  that  person  and 
quoted  his  words  directly,  as  when  he  writes : 

Ceyx  being  troubled  at  this,  immediately  told  the  Heraclidse, 
his  descendants,  to  leave  the  country:  "For  I  am  not  able  to  help 
you ;  therefore  that  you  may  not  be  yourselves  destroyed,  and  injure 
me  also,  go  away  to  another  people." 

The  work  of  Hecataeus  was  much  used  by  Herodotus,  and 
was  doubtless  of  great  value  in  adding  to  the  knowledge 
which  the  Greeks  possessed  of  the  world  about  them.  It 
seems  also  to  have  been  important  as  a  specimen  of  Ionic 
narrative  prose,  a  kind  of  literature  of  which  the  work  of 
Herodotus  is  now  our  only  remaining  example.  In  the 
sixth  century  Ionic  writers  were  numerous  and  influential, 
The  destruc-  an(^  many  of  them  were  from  Miletus.  With 
tionofMile-  the  destruction  of  Miletus  in  494  B.  c,  the 
tus-  centre  of  Ionic  life  was  removed  from  Asia. 

Athens  speedily  became  the  intellectual  capital  of  the 
Greek  world,  and  all  prose  writing  became,  under  Athenian 
influence,  rhetorical.  Fortunately  for  us,  Herodotus,  though 
he  lived  after  the  destruction  of  Miletus,  wrote  in  the  nar- 
rative Ionic  style,  a  style  which,  but  for  the  destruction  of 
Miletus,  might  have  continued  in  use  alongside  of  the  more 
rhetorical  prose  of  Athens. 

Three  logographers  slightly  later  than  Hecataeus  are 
Pherecydes  of  Leros  (often  confused  with  Pherecydes  of 
Syros),  Charon  of  Lampsacus,  and  Xanthus  of  Lydia. 
12 


168  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Pherecydes  wrote  Genealogies,  of  which  about  one  hundred 
fragments  are   preserved.     It  was  similar  to  the  work  of 
Acusilaus,  dry  genealogies  and  mythological 
erecy  es      tales.     The  style  is  simple,  the  sentences  short 
and  disconnected,  the  dialect  Ionic  with  some 
Attic  expressions,  which  may  be  due  to  the  author's  stay  at 
Athens,  where  he  lived  so  long  that  he  is  sometimes  spoken 
of  as  an  Athenian.     Charon  wrote  several  books,  Persica, 
Hellenica    (histories    of    Persia   and    Greece), 
Foundations  (accounts  of  the  founding  of  vari- 
ous cities),  and  Annals  of  Lampsacus.     In  these  there  were 
many  mythological  stories  and  other  tales.     The  style  of 
Charon  resembles  that  of  Pherecydes  of  Leros.     Xanthus 
is  said  to  have  been  older  than  Herodotus,  but 
he  lived  to  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century. 
Xanthus  wrote  Lydiaca,  a  history  of  Lydia,  or  rather  a  col- 
lection of  stories  about  Lydia,  mythological  and  other  tales 
mingled  with  observations  on  the  languages  and  the  physi- 
cal geography  of  various  regions.     The  extant  fragments 
hardly  permit  us  to  judge  of  his  style. 

Hellanicus  of  Mytilene  and  Antiochus  of  Syracuse  were 
contemporaries  of  Herodotus,  though  the  dates  of  their 
birth  and  death  are  unknown.  Hellanicus  men- 
tions the  battle  of  Arginusae  in  one  of  his  works, 
and  must  therefore  have  lived  at  least  until  406  B.  c.  He 
wrote  mythological  narratives,  many  of  which  are  referred 
to  by  title,  as  Phoronis,  Atlantis,  and  the  like.  Whether 
these  were  grouped  together  under  one  general  title  or  not 
we  do  not  know.  Other  works  were  annals,  probably  in 
great  part  mythical,  of  various  places  ;  the  Troica  and  Per- 
sica appear  to  have  been  accounts  of  the  Trojan  and  Per- 
sian wars ;  the  Victors  at  the  Carnean  Games  was  a  chrono- 
logical list,  probably  with  notes  on  events  not  directly  con- 
nected with  the  games ;  while  the  Iliereiw,  or  Priestesses,  is 
a  history  of  Greece,  arranged  chronologically  and  dated  by 
the  years  of  the  priestesses  at  the  Heraeum  at  Argos,  and 


THE  LOGOGRAPHERS  169 

the  Atthis,  or  Attic  History,  is  a  similar  work,  in  which  the 
dates  are  given  by  the  list  of  the  Athenian  archons.  The 
Atthis  appears  to  have  been  a  continuation  of  the  Hiereice 
after  the  Argive  temple  of  Hera  was  burned  in  423  b.  c,  a 
time  when  it  was  natural  to  employ  the  names  of  the 
Athenian  archons  to  fix  dates  in  Greek  history,  as  Athens 
was  at  the  height  of  her  power.  The  accuracy  of  Hellani- 
cus  is  attacked  by  Thucydides,  perhaps  deservedly ;  but  the 
fact  that  he  wrote  the  history  of  his  own  times,  not  merely 
the  legendary  history  of  the  distant  past,  and  that  he  paid 
attention  to  chronology,  makes  him  a  figure  of  importance. 
Of  his  style  the  extant  fragments,  which  for  the  most  part 
are  not  quoted  exactly,  give  us  no  idea. 

Antiochus  of  Syracuse  wrote  a  history  of  Sicily  to  the 
confederation  of  Sicilian  cities  in  424  b.  c,  which  was  used 
by  Thucydides  in  compiling  his  account  of 
Sicilian  affairs.  A  similar  history  had  been 
written  before  by  Hippys  of  Rhegium,  who  lived  at  the 
time  of  the  Persian  wars.  Antiochus  also  wrote  a  series  of 
accounts  of  the  foundations  of  the  Italian  cities,  in  which 
the  name  of  Eome  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  Greek 
literature.  Too  little  remains  of  his  writings  to  give  any 
idea  of  his  style. 

Several  other  logographers  are  known  by  name,  and  the 
titles  of  some  of  their  works  are  preserved,  but  if  they  had 
any  literary  importance  we  are  no  longer  able  to  recognize 
it.  Stesimbrotus  of  Thasos,  who  wrote  a  literary  work  on 
Homer  and  a  political  pamphlet  on  Themis- 
togographeri.  tocles>  Thucydides  (the  politician),  and  Peri- 
cles, deserves  mention  because  his  pamphlet  was 
used  by  the  historian  Ephorus,  and  through  him  by  Plu- 
tarch, in  his  Lives  of  Themistocles  and  Pericles.  He  had  a 
liking  for  scandal,  and  his  statements  can  not  always  be 
accepted  as  true.  Among  the  logographers  there  was  none 
who  compared  with  Hecataeus  in  importance  or  literary 
ability.    He  was  the  greatest  prose  writer  before  Herodotus. 


CHAPTEE  XV 

HERODOTUS 

Herodotus,  about  484  to  about  425  b.  c. — Ctesias,  about  400  b.  c. 

Herodotus,  who  is  called  the  father  of  history,  was  born 

about  484  and  lived  until  after  the  beginning  of  the  Pelo- 

ponnesian  War,  perhaps  until  about  425  b.  c.     His  parents, 

Lyxes  and  Dryo  or  Ehoio,  belonged  to  promi- 

*  e  °,  .  nent- families  in  his  native  city  of  Halicarnas- 

Herodotus.  J 

sus.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  nephew  of  Pany- 
asis  (see  page  57),  perhaps  because  he  showed  the  familiar- 
ity with  the  works  of  the  poets  which  would  be  expected  in 
a  near  relative  of  the  chief  poet  and  literary  man  of  Halicar- 
nassus.  At  the  time  of  Herodotus's  birth  Halicarnassus  was 
subject  to  the  Carian  queen  Artemisia.  In  a  revolt  against 
Lygdamis,  one  of  her  successors,  Panyasis  lost  his  life,  and 
Herodotus,  at  that  time  little  more  than  twenty  years  of 
age,  was  obliged  to  retire  to  Samos.  He  was  soon  enabled 
to  return  to  Halicarnassus,  but  new  difficulties  arose,  and 
he  left  his  native  city  almost  immediately.  There  is  a 
story  that  he  was  at  Athens  in  446,  where  he  read  part  of 
his  history  in  public,  and  received  a  reward  of  ten  talents 
(about  $10,000)  from  the  state.  The  latter  part  of  this 
story  is  so  improbable  as  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  whole. 
In  444  B.  c.  he  took  part  in  the  founding  of  Thurii,  in  Italy, 
and  is  therefore  sometimes  called  a  Thurian.  He  probably 
died  at  Thurii,  and  if  his  tomb  was  really  shown  at  Athens 
it  must  have  been  a  cenotaph  or  empty  monument.  He- 
170  -      "" 


HERODOTUS  171 

rodotus  traveled  extensively,  and  embodied  in  his  history 
the  results  of,  his  observation  in  various  countries.  He 
visited  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  Thrace,  and  Pontus, 
went  to  Babylon  and  Susa,  traveled  up  the  Nile  in  Egypt, 
and  made  the  voyage  to  Cyrene,  in  addition  to  living  for 
some  time  at  Athens  and  taking  part  in  the  founding  of 
Thurii.  At  what  time  of  his  life  these  journeys  were  un- 
dertaken can  not  be  determined  with  certainty,  but  they 
were  probably  finished  for  the  most  part  before  the  found- 
ing of  Thurii,  in  444  b.  c.  It  appears,  however,  that  He- 
rodotus returned  to  Athens  at  least  once  after  he  went  to 
Thurii,  for  he  mentions  the  Propylaea  at  Athens,  a  building 
which  was  not  finished  until  about  431  b.  c. 

Herodotus  has  left  us  a  history  of  the  Persian  wars  in 
nine  books,  which  are  named  after  the  nine  Muses.  This 
division  was  not  made  by  Herodotus  himself,  and  probably 
The  history  dates  from  Alexandrian  times,  when  it  was  the 
of  the  Persian  fashion  to  divide  the  long  works  of  earlier 
wars.  authors  into  books    or  rolls   of  about   equal 

length.  Herodotus  himself,  in  referring  from  one  part  of 
his  work  to  another,  never  uses  the  word  "  book,"  but  refers 
to  the  subject  treated,  as,  for  instance,  "  in  my  account  of 
Libyan  affairs."  The  entire  work  was  not  written  at  once, 
but  at  different  times,  and  the  various  parts  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  composed  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  finally 
arranged,  but  they  were  revised  and  made  into  one  con- 
nected work  before  the  final  publication.  It  is  held  by 
some  scholars  that  the  work  was  never  completed  as  Herod- 
otus intended ;  for  it  closes  with  the  capture  of  Sestos  in 
477  b.  c,  and  yet  it  is  thought  that  the  battle  of  the  Eurym- 
edon  would  have  been  a  more  fitting  end.  It  is,  however, 
possible  that  Herodotus  thought  differently,  for  after,  the 
capture  of  Sestos  the  Greeks  were  no  longer  defending 
themselves  against  Persian  aggression,  but  were  themselves 
the  aggressors.  Herodotus  refers  to  an  "  account  of  Assyr- 
ian affairs  "  which  we  seek  in  vain  in  his  history.     This  may 


172  GREEK  LITERATURE 

perhaps  have  been  an  independent  work,  but  it  is  more 
probable  that  he  intended  to  insert  it  in  the  great  history 
and  failed  to  do  so.  But,  even  though  we  believe  that  the 
history  as  we  have  it  is  not  completed  as  Herodotus  in- 
tended, it  is  still  the  most  complete,  most  carefully  planned, 
and  most  artistically  composed  history  known  before  Thu- 
cydides. 

The  main  subject  of  the  great  work  of  Herodotus  is  the 

invasion  of  Greece  by  the  Persians,  first  under  Darius,  and 

then  under  Xerxes ;  but  five  of  the  nine  books 

on  ents  o       are  ^evo^e(j  ^o  events  that  led  up  to  the  first 
the  work.  ,  ,  .  r     . 

invasion,  the  account  of  which  is  enlivened  by 

numerous  digressions.  After  a  few  preliminary  remarks 
comes  the  history  of  Croesus,  with  an  account  of  the 
previous  history  of  Lydia  and  of  the  Greek  cities;  then 
follows  the  story  of  the  struggle  of  Croesus  against  Cyrus, 
with  further  information  about  Greek  history;  the  end 
of  the  history  of  Cyrus,  including  the  conquest  of  Ionia ; 
the  capture  of  Babylon,  with  a  digression  concerning  Baby- 
lon, and  the  war  of  the  Persians  with  the  Massagetae.  The 
history  of  the  Persians  is  then  continued  by  an  account  of 
the  conquest  of  Egypt  by  Cambyses,  which  includes  a  long 
digression  concerning  Egypt.  This  is  followed  by  the  war 
in  Scythia  and  a  digression  concerning  the  Scythians,  after 
which  comes  the  revolt  of  Ionia,  followed  by  the  invasion 
of  Greece  under  Darius,  and  finally  by  the  invasion  under 
Xerxes. 

The  great  difference  between  Herodotus  and  the  logo- 
graphers  is  in  the  choice  of  subject.     The  logographers 
wrote  of  the  foundings  of  cities  and  the  gene- 
between  alogies  of  heroes.     Their  subjects  were  for  the 

Herodotus  most  part  mythological.  Herodotus  chose  the 
and  his  story  of  the  wars  of  the  Greeks  with  the  Per- 

pre  ecessors.  ^^  which  took  place  in  his  own  lifetime. 
When  the  logographers  descended  to  recent  times,  their 
works  were  still  genealogical  or  annalistic — that  is,  they 


HERODOTUS  173 

consisted  of  lists  of  names  in  chronological  order,  with 
accounts  of  events  regarded  by  themselves.  Herodotus 
tells  of  the  great  struggle  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Persians, 
and  all  events  are  regarded  in  their  connection  with  that 
struggle.     This  already  shows  a  different  point  of  view. 

Moreover,  Herodotus  is  the  first  who  tried  to  write 
scientific  history.  He  calls  his  work  history,  which  means 
investigation.  He  tried  to  find  out  the  truth  and  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  what  was  untrue  or  doubtful.  He  made 
mistakes,  of  course,  for  his  scientific  knowledge  was  de- 
ficient and  he  was  more  credulous  than  a  later  investigator 
would  have  been ;  but  his  honesty  of  purpose  shines  forth 
from  every  page  of  his  work.  He  does  not  avoid  mytho- 
logical tales,  but  these  are  accessories,  not  the  main  part  of 
his  history,  and  they  were  the  only  accounts  of  remote 
periods  available.  Other  marvelous  stories  are  introduced, 
but  these  are  also  mere  accessories,  and  when  Herodotus 
tells  them  without  qualification  it  is  because  he  has  no 
means  of  proving  that  they  are  not  true.  He  tries  to  find 
out  and  tell  the  truth,  as  well  as  the  current  stories,  and  is 
thereby  distinguished  from  his  predecessors,  whose  main 
purpose  was  to  tell  in  prose  the  current  legends. 

Herodotus  has  four  sources  of  information,  between 
which  he  distinguishes  clearly.  "  Up  to  this  point,"  he 
The  sources  savs  (Book  II,  99),  "  it  is  from  my  own  observa- 
of  his  infor-  tion  and  opinion  and  research  that  I  tell  these 
mation.  things,  but  from  this  point  I  proceed  to  give 

the  accounts  of  the  Egyptians  as  I  heard  them ;  but  some- 
thing of  my  own  observation  is  added  to  them."  Many 
things  Herodotus  saw  himself  in  his  travels,  and  these  he 
describes  as  he  saw  them,  giving  us  the  impressions  he 
received.  He  was  not  a  trained  observer,  but  he  was  a  man 
of  sense  who  kept  his  eyes  open.  His  description  of  what 
he  saw  is  not  always  accurate,  but  is  as  nearly  accurate  as 
could  be  expected.  Other  things  he  found  out  by  research, 
by  reading  the  works  of  his  predecessors,  such  as  Hecataeus 


174  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  Hellanicus,  by  examining  the  inscriptions  and  monu- 
ments in  the  Greek  temples,  and  by  questioning  eye- 
witnesses of  events.  In  regard  to  some  other  matters, 
where  no  direct  evidence  was  forthcoming,  he  had  to  trust 
to  his  own  common  sense  or  opinion.  This  would  be  espe- 
cially the  case  when  conflicting  accounts  of  the  same  event 
existed.  Concerning  the  past  history  of  foreign  peoples, 
he  was  obliged  to  accept  the  account  given  him  by  the  best 
informed  natives,  the  priests  or  professional  guides,  for  he 
could  not  read  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  or  Persian.  But  when 
he  depends  upon  such  sources  for  his  information  he  warns 
us  distinctly  of  the  fact,  as  in  the  passage  cited  above.  He 
even  takes  pains  to  warn  us  against  accepting  implicitly  all 
the  stories  he  tells  at  second  hand.  "  It  is  my  duty  to  tell 
what  is  told  me,"  he  says,1  "  but  it  is  not  my  duty  to  believe 
it  absolutely,  and  let  this  remark  apply  to  the  whole  of  my 
work." 

Although  Herodotus  was  for  a  long  time  at  Athens  at  a 
period  when  the  doctrines  of  the  sophists  were,  as  we  shall 
see,  undermining  the  ancient  belief  in  the  gods  and  when 
argumentative  and  oratorical  composition  was  gaining  in 
popularity  at  the  expense  of  simple  narrative,  he  retained 
his  belief  in  the  old  Homeric  gods  and  wrote  in  a  style 
which  may  almost  be  called  epic  prose.  In  the  midst  of 
the  Attic  development  of  the  fifth  century  Herodotus  is 
Ionic  and  primitive.     He  has  a  philosophy  of 

SrSuiion'   hist0IT'  but  iij  is  a  simPle  religious  philosophy. 
The    faults    of    men,   especially   pride,   bring 
punishment,  and  the  sins  of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon 
the  children : 

Do  you  see  how  God  strikes  with  his  thunderbolt  the  greatest 
creatures  and  does  not  allow  them  to  exalt  themselves,  while  the 
small  ones  trouble  him  not  at  all  ?  And  do  you  see  how  his  shafts 
always  strike  the  tallest  houses  and  trees  ?  For  God  loves  to  put 
down  all  things  that  exalt  themselves.2 

1  VII,  152.  2  VII,  10,  5. 


HERODOTUS  175 

The  gods  and  fate  watch  over  the  actions  and  fortunes 
of  men,  and  history  is  but  the  expression  of  the  divine  law. 
The  will  of  the  gods  is  expressed  to  men  by  oracles  and 
portents,  none  of  which  is  too  wonderful  for  Herodotus  to 
believe  in,  the  only  reason  for  his  disbelief  in  some  instances 
being  the  fact  that  he  heard  of  the  sign  or  wonder  on 
what  he  considers  poor  authority.  Homer  and  .Hesiod  he 
regards  as  the  founders  of  men's  knowledge  of  the  gods, 
and  his  religious  belief  is  founded  upon  Homer  and  Hesiod, 
though  enlarged  and  deepened  by  the  teaching  of  the  mys- 
teries. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  work  Herodotus  declares  his 
purpose  in  writing  it :  "  That  human  events  may  not  be- 
styie  and  come  obliterated  by  time,  and  that  the  great 
manner  of  and  wonderful  deeds  performed  by  Greeks  and 
composition,  barbarians  may  not  lose  their  glory."  So  his 
history  is  an  account  of  the  great  deeds  of  men,  much  as 
the  Homeric  poems  are  accounts  of  the  great  deeds  of  the 
heroes.  His  purpose  is  not  to  write  a  book  which  shall  be 
useful  to  posterity  so  much  as  to  record  in  an  interesting 
way  the  glorious  deeds  of  his  countrymen  and  others. 
Whatever  is  not  directly  connected  with  such  deeds  is  to 
be  regarded  as  a  digression.  But  Herodotus  was  a  great 
traveler,  a  man  interested  in  many  things,  one  who  was 
willing  to  receive  and  impart  information  on  many  subjects. 
The  digressions  in  his  work  are  therefore  numerous  and  in- 
teresting. His  main  theme  is  the  Persian  invasion  of  Greece, 
but  he  is  in  no  hurry  to  reach  it,  nor,  when  he  has  reached 
it,  to  finish  it,  though  the  movement  in  the  last  books  is 
somewhat  more  rapid  than  in  the  earlier  ones.  His  narra- 
tive  moves  along  with  an  easy  flow,  stopping  and  turning 
aside  whenever  an  interesting  subject  for  a  digression 
occurs,  but  returning  to  its  regular  course  after  the  digres- 
sion and  proceeding  with  simple  directness.  The  style  of 
Herodotus  is  in  harmony  with  his  manner  of  composition. 
His  narrative  is  simple  and  straightforward.    His  sentences 


176  GREEK  LITERATURE 

are  not  involved  or  obscure.  Sometimes  they  are  long,  but 
then  they  consist  of  clauses  arranged  in  succession  and 
connected  by  simple  particles  like  "  and  "  or  "  but."  The 
periodical  sentence,  such  as  it  is  found  in  Thucydides  and 
later  writers,  is  foreign  to  Herodotus.  His  sentences 
resemble  rather  those  of  a  modern  English  writer  than 
those  of  the  later  more  rhetorical  classical  authors.  It 
belongs  to  the  simplicity  of  his  style  that  Herodotus  sel- 
dom employs  the  form  of  indirect  quotation.  He  inserts 
many  imaginary  conversations  in  his  work,  but  these  are  all 
given  as  if  in  the  actual  words  of  the  speakers,  not  reported 
in  the  third  person.  His  style  is  picturesque  and  interest- 
ing, but  seldom  rises  to  eloquence.  At  times  he  is  grave 
and  almost  stately  in  expression,  but  more  often  naive  and 
simple.  He  employs  Homeric  phrases  to  add  dignity  to  his 
expression  much  as  biblical  phrases  are  used  by  modern 
authors.  The  general  impression  produced  by  his  style  is 
that  of  simplicity  and  straightforwardness  with  utter  free- 
dom from  affectation.  His  dialect  is  Ionic,  with  occasional 
admixture  of  Homeric  and  other  elements,  and  his  work 
marks  the  highest  development  of  Ionic  prose. 

Some  idea  of  Herodotus's  style  may  be  obtained  from  a 
D.        .  translation  of  part  of  his  digression  about  the 

conoeming  Scythians  (Book  IV,  11),  a  passage  which  serves 
the  Scyth-  also  as  a  specimen  of  the  numerous  digres- 
ians.  sions  which  he   allowed  himself  and  of  the 

almost  childlike  faith  with  which  he  accepted  stories  of 
past  times  and  distant  lands  : 

There  is  also  another  story,  as  follows,  to  which  I  myself  incline : 
that  the  nomadic  Scythians,  living  in  Asia,  when  they  were  hard 
pressed  in  war  by  the  Massagetse,  crossed  the  river  Araxes  and  went 
away  to  the  country  of  Cimmeria  (for  the  country  which  the  Scyth- 
ians now  inhabit  is  said  to  have  belonged  in  ancient  times  to  the 
Cimmerians),  and  that  the  Cimmerians,  when  the  Scythians  came 
against  them  took  counsel,  since  a  great  army  was  coming  against 
them,  and  their  opinions  were  divided,  both  being  vehement,  but 


HERODOTUS  177 

that  of  the  chiefs  being  better;  for  the  opinion  of  the  common 
people  was  that  it  was  best  to  go  away  and  that  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  put  themselves  in  danger  for  the  sake  of  mere  soil ;  but 
that  of  the  chiefs  was  to  fight  to  the  last  gasp  for  their  country 
against  the  invaders.  Now  neither  was  the  people  willing  to  yield 
to  the  chiefs  nor  the  chiefs  to  the  people ;  so  the  former  decided  to 
go  away  without  fighting  and  give  up  the  land  to  the  invaders ;  but 
the  chiefs  determined  to  die  and  be  laid  in  their  own  land  and  not 
to  join  the  people  in  flight,  considering  all  the  blessings  they  had 
enjoyed  and  all  the  evils  they  must  expect  to  encounter  as  fugitives 
from  their  country.  And  when  they  had  thus  determined  they 
divided  and  made  themselves  equal  in  number  and  fought  with 
each  other.  And  when  they  had  all  been  slam  by  one  another,  the 
people  of  the  Cimmerians  buried  them  by  the  river  Tyras  (and 
their  tomb  is  still  visible),  and  when  they  had  buried  them  then 
they  made  their  migration  from  the  country.  And  the  Scythians 
came  and  took  the  land  which  was  empty. 

Herodotus  belongs  chronologically  to  the  Attic  period, 
but  in  dialect,  style,  and  manner  of  thought  he  is  the  natu- 
ral successor  of  the  logographers.  He  is  filled 
little  aifected  w^h  admiration  for  the  greatness  of  Athens, 
by  the  new  but  is  little  affected  by  the  new  intellectual 
intellectual  activity  of  that  brilliant  centre  of  Greek  life 
and  thought.  His  mind  was  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  poets  of  old,  and  among  his  Athenian  contem- 
poraries the  tragedians  iEschylus  and  Sophocles  appealed 
to  him  far  more  than  did  the  sophists  and  orators  of  the 
day.  He  marks  at  once  the  beginning  of  critical  historical 
writing  and  of  really  artistic  prose,  but  at  the  same  time  he 
is  the  last  important  writer  of  Ionic  prose  and  the  last 
writer  whose  prose  is  free  from  the  influence  of  dialectics 
and  oratory.  The  charm  of  his  style  is  great,  but  it  lacks 
the  incisive  vigor  of  Thucydides  and  the  fiery  eloquence  of 
Demosthenes. 

Ctesias  of  Cnidus,  born  in  the  second  half  of  the  fifth 
century  B.  c,  was  by  profession  a  physician.  He  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Persians  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  became 


178  GREEK  LITERATURE 

court  physician  at  Susa,  where  he  remained  seventeen  years. 
He  was  present  as  the  physician  of  King  Artaxerxes  at  the 
battle  of  Cunaxa  in  401.  He  was  held  in  great 
honor,  and  had  access  to  the  royal  archives, 
which  he  used  in  composing  his  works.  He  wrote  on  his- 
torical, geographical,  and  medical  subjects,  his  most  cele- 
brated works  being  the  Persica,  or  History  of  Persia,  and 
the  Indica,  or  Description  of  India.  Only  fragments  of 
these  works  remain.  His  style  is  said  by  ancient  writers  to 
have  been  pleasing  and  clear,  though  somewhat  prolix.  He 
had  ample  sources  of  information,  and  his  books  were 
therefore  valuable,  but  he  was  not  always  careful  or  even 
truthful  in  his  statements.  His  works  were  full  of  petty 
antagonism  to  Herodotus,  and,  like  him,  he  belongs  in 
spirit  to  the  period  before  the  great  influence  of  Athens  in 
spite  of  his  comparatively  late  date. 


BOOK  II 
THE  ATTIC  PEBIOD 


CHAPTEK  XVI 

ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE   DRAMA 

Athens  in  the  fifth  century — Rise  of  drama  from  the  dithyramb — 
Thespis,  about  550  b.  c. — Chocrilus,  about  550  to  about  480  b.  c. — Pratinas, 
about  500  b.  c. — Phrynichus,  about  540-476  b.  c. — Festivals  of  Dionysus 
at  Athens — The  drama  supported  by  the  state — The  chorus — The  poet 
and  the  actors — Payments  and  prizes — The  theatre — Divisions  of  Greek 
plays. 

In  the  sixth  century  b.  c.  Athens  was  already  one  of  the 
most  important  cities  of  Greece,  and  we  have  seen  that 
under  Pisistratus  and  his  sons,  Anacreon,  Simonides,  and 
other  foreign  poets  were  attracted  thither.  In  the  fifth 
century,  especially  after  the  foundation  of  the  confederacy 
of  Delos,  Athens  was  politically  the  most  prominent  of  the 
Athens  in  Greek  states,  and  at  the  same  time  the  chief 
the  fifth  centre  of  intellectual  and  artistic  life.     The 

century.  citadel  was  adorned  with  beautiful  buildings 

and  monuments  of  all  kinds ;  artists,  poets,  philosophers, 
and  sophists  were  eager  to  practise  their  crafts  and  profes- 
sions in  the  city  whose  commerce  and  manufactures  at- 
tracted hosts  of  foreign  traders  and  whose  great  wealth 
was  increased  by  the  tribute  of  her  allies.  The  festivals  of 
the  gods  became  brilliant  and  splendid  as  never  before. 
Wealthy,  powerful,  and  cosmopolitan  Athens  was  the  nat- 
ural patron  of  all  the  liberal  arts,  and  her  people,  alert, 

179 


180  GREEK  LITERATURE 

vigorous,  self-confident,  and  at  the  same  time  filled  with 
love  of  beauty  and  appreciation  of  all  kinds  of  artistic  and 
literary  excellence,  were  ready  not  only  to  receive  and  adapt 
the  best  that  other  parts  of  Greece  could  offer,  but  also  to 
produce  from  among  themselves  the  greatest  artists,  poets, 
orators,  and  thinkers  of  the  ancient  world.  The  Athenians 
believed  that  their  race  had  inhabited  Attica  from  time  im- 
memorial, but  they  knew  that  the  original  stock  had  re- 
ceived additions  from  various  Greek  tribes.  It  was  a  mixed 
race,  though  in  the  main  Ionic,  and  its  speech,  Ionic  for 
the  most  part,  was  so  modified  that  it  was  understood  in 
all  parts  of  the  Greek  world,  and  became  in  the  end  the 
common  language,  at. least  for  literary  purposes,  of  the 
whole  Greek  race.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  natural 
that  Attic  literature  in  the  fifth  century  was  of  the  greatest 
importance. 

Of  all  the  literary  movements  of  the  fifth  century  the 
development  of  the  Attic  drama  is  the  most  important. 
The  begin-  But  the  beginnings  of  drama  belong  in  earlier 
nings  of  times  and  must  be  discussed  briefly  before  the 

drama.  work  of  the  great  dramatists  of  the  fifth  cen- 

tury can  be  understood.  The  drama  is  of  Attic  origin, 
but  is  a  development  from  the  rustic  songs  of  Dionysus 
which  were  common  to  all  parts  of  Greece  under  the  name 
of  dithyrambs.  We  have  seen  (page  113)  that  Arion  devel- 
oped the  dithyramb  into  an  artistic  form.  Whether  the 
drama  arose  from  the  dithyramb  as  presented  by  Arion  or 
from  its  more  primitive  form  is  uncertain,  but  as  the  dithy- 
ramb continued  in  vogue  in  Athens  after  the  rise  of  the 
drama,  the  latter  alternative  is  more  probable.  At  any 
rate,  there  were  in  the  Attic  villages  choral  songs  in  honor 
of  Dionysus,  and  the  leader  of  the  chorus  probably  took  the 
part  of  a  messenger  from  the  god,  and  told  stories  or 
myths  pertaining  to  the  trials  and  sufferings  which  the 
god  endured  on  earth.  The  choral  songs  were  then  for  the 
most  part  wailings  and  lamentations  for  those  sufferings. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DRAMA     181 

Similar  songs  combined  with  narrative  by  the  leader  of 
the  chorus  were  sung  at  other  places  in  honor  of  other 
gods  or  heroes,  as  at  Sicyon  in  honor  of  Adrastus.  At 
first  the  words  of  the  leader  were  no  doubt  merely  im- 
provised, and  the  songs  of  the  chorus  were  traditional, 
with  little  variety  or  originality.  Such  festivals  appear 
to  have  been  especially  common  among  Doric  Greeks, 
and  hence  the  Dorians  claimed  to  be  the  inventors  of 
tragedy.  The  chorus  at  these  festivals  appeared  disguised 
as  satyrs,  the  followers  of  Dionysus,  who  were  half  man  and 
half  goat,  and  from  the  word  tragos,  "goat,"  the  name 
"  tragedy  "  is  derived.  As  tragedy  developed  into  a  serious 
branch  of  literature,  the  chorus  of  satyrs  was  replaced  by 
a  chorus  appropriate  to  the  plot  of  each  play,  but  the 
"  satyr  drama,"  a  kind  of  mythical  burlesque,  which  was 
performed  at  the  end  of  a  series  of  three  tragedies,  retained, 
as  a  rule,  the  chorus  of  satyrs. 

Thespis,  of  the  deme  of  Icaria,  in  Attica,  is  said  to  have 
been  the  inventor  of  tragedy.     This  seems  to  mean  that 

about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  b.  c. 

Thespis  separated  the  leader  of  the  chorus 
more  distinctly  from  the  others  than  had  been  done  before, 
and  perhaps  made  him  actually  impersonate  the  god  Dio- 
nysus and  recite  verses  not  simply  narrative,  but  demand- 
ing a  response  from  the  chorus.  All  that  is  certain  is 
that  Thespis  brought  dramatic  action  into  the  dithyramb, 
though  only  to  a  limited  extent.  The  new  kind  of  dithy- 
ramb found  favor  and  was  introduced  into  the  city  festivals 
of  Athens  in  534  b.  c,  when  Pisistratus  was  ruler.  Hor- 
ace1 says  that  Thespis  traveled  about  in  a  cart,  giving 
performances  in  various  places,  and  that  the  faces  of 
the  performers  were  smeared  with  the  dregs  of  wine. 
Other  writers  attribute  to  him  the  invention  of  the  pro- 
logue and  the  introduction  of  narrative,  which  is  the  same 

1 4rs  Poetica,  275  ff. 


182  GREEK  LITERATURE 

thing  as  the  introduction  of  the  actor.  He  is  also  said  to 
have  invented  the  mask  used  by  all  tragic  actors.  Prob- 
ably some  of  the  inventions  attributed  to  Thespis  were 
made  before  his  day,  and  others  may  have  been  made  by 
his  contemporaries.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  in  de- 
tail what  is  to  be  attributed  to  him,  nor  can  we  even  fix  his 
date  exactly.  We  only  know  that  he  lived  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  sixth  century  b.  c. 

Choerilus  of  Athens  is  said  to  have  competed  for  the 
prize  in  tragedy  for  the  first  time  in  the  sixty-fourth  Olym- 
piad (524-521  b.  a),  and  also  in  the  seventy- 
fourth  (484-481  b.  a).     He  was  apparently  a 
prolific  author,  but  none  of  his  many  plays  has  been  pre- 
served.    Pratinas  of  Phlius  competed  with  Choerilus  and 
^Eschylus  in  the  seventieth  Olympiad  (500-497  b.  a).     He 
was  less  prolific  than  Choerilus,  and  of  his  fifty 
plays  thirty-two  are  said  to  have  been  satyr 
dramas.     The  satyr  dramas  of  Pratinas  and  his  son  Aristias 
were    regarded    as   second  to  those   of  ^Eschylus   alone. 
Further  than  this  we  know  only  the  titles  of  one  or  two 
plays  by  Pratinas,  and  a  few  fragments  of  his  lyric  poems 
are  preserved,  which  show  him  to  have  been  a  poet  of  no 
little  grace   and  charm.     Phrynichus  of  Athens,  son    of 
Polyphradmon,   was    the   third  and   greatest 
tragic  poet  who  succeeded   Thespis  and  pre- 
ceded iEschylus.     His  first  victory  in  tragic  competition  is 
assigned  to  the  sixty-seventh  Olympiad  (512-509  b.  a).    His 
Capture  of  Miletus  was  probably  produced  soon  after  Mi- 
letus was  taken  by  the  Persians,  in  494,  and  his  Phoenicians, 
which  probably  celebrated  the  battle  of  Salamis,  appears  to 
belong  to  the  year  476  b.  c.     At  that  time  the  poet  was 
already  old.     The  date  of  his  death,  which  took  place  in 
Sicily,  is  unknown.     The  titles  of  nine  of  his  tragedies  are 
known,  but  few  fragments  are  preserved,  and  from  these  we 
gain  little  information.     It  is  noticeable  that  two  of  his 
tragedies  take  their  subjects  from  contemporary  events. 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DRAMA     183 

With  very  few  exceptions  (these  two  and  the  Persians  of 
jEschylus)  the  subjects  of  Greek  tragedies  are  mythical. 
According  to  Herodotus,  the  performance  of  the  Capture 
of  Miletus  filled  the  Athenians  with  such  grief  that  they 
fined  the  author  a  thousand  drachmas  and  forbade  the  pro- 
duction of  similar  dramas.  Phrynichus  is  said  to  have 
made  female  parts  prominent  in  his  plays,  but  he  was  not 
the  first  to  introduce  female  characters.  The  works  of 
Choerilus,  Pratinas,  and  Phrynichus  were  undoubtedly  for 
the  most  part  lyric,  the  actor  being  of  less  importance  than 
the  chorus.  The  same  is  true,  though  to  a  less  degree,  of 
the  tragedies  of  iEschylus.  Greek  tragedy  was  developed 
from  lyric  poetry  and  retained  to  the  end  its  lyric  character 
alongside  of  its  dramatic  action.  This  fact  and  the  fact 
that  the  performance  of  tragedies  was  an  act  of  worship 
must  always  be  borne  in  mind,  for  Greek  tragedy  was  in 
form  and  spirit  essentially  different  from  modern  tragedy, 
and  the  difference  is  due  chiefly  to  the  prevailing  influence 
of  religion  and  of  lyric  poetry. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  discussion  of  the  works  of 
^Eschylus,  the  greatest  innovator  and  most  original  genius 
among  the  Greek  tragic  poets,  it  is  well  to  devote  a  few 
words  to  the  circumstances  under  which  Greek  tragedies 
were  performed.  Tragedy  originated  and  was  developed  at 
Athens,  and  although  it  soon  spread  throughout  the  whole 
Greek  world,  our  information  concerning  it  is  derived  almost 
entirely  from  Athens.  It  is  therefore  with  the  circum- 
stances surrounding  it  at  Athens  that  we  have ,  to  deal. 

There  were  in  the  city  of  xAthens  two  annual 
Dionysiac        festivals  at  which  dramatic  performances  were 

given — the  Lenaean  festival  in  January,  and  the 
City  (or  Greater)  Dionysia  in  March.  To  these  should  be 
added  the  Lesser  (or  Eural)  Dionysia,  celebrated  in  the 
various  demes  of  Attica  in  December.  Some  of  these  rural 
festivals  were  rural  only  in  name  and  were  of  considerable 
importance.  Such  was,  for  instance,  the  festival  at  the 
13 


184  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Piraeus.  It  seems,  however,  that  new  tragedies  were 
seldom,  if  ever,  performed  outside  of  the  city.  At  first 
the  Lenaean  festival  seems  to  have  been  at  least  as  im- 
portant as  the  Greater  Dionysia  in  March,  but  it  became 
for  a  time  so  much  less  important  that  it  was  not  cele- 
brated with  the  performance  of  new  tragedies.  Soon, 
however,  the  number  of  tragedies  offered  became  so  great 
that  new  pieces  were  performed  at  the  Lenaea  and  the 
Greater  Dionysia  alike. 

At  public  festivals  in  honor  of  the  gods  the  Greeks 
loved  to  introduce  contests  or  competitions  for  prizes.  So 
at  the  festivals  of  Dionysus,  tragedies  were  performed  in 
competition.  Though  such  contests  were  introduced  in  the 
sixth  century,  we  know  little  of  them  until  the  time  of 
^Eschylus  and  Sophocles.  The  following  description  ap- 
plies therefore  especially  to  the  fifth  century.  The  chief 
superintendence  of  the  greater  Dionysia  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  first  archon  (Archon  Eponymus),  that  of  the  Lenaea 
in  those  of  the  second  archon  (King  Archon),  and  in  the 
demes  the  demarchs  were  in  charge.  Erom 
these  magistrates  each  poet  who  was  admitted 
to  the  competition  received  a  chorus.  The  chorus  was 
thus  furnished  by  the  state,  but  it  really  received  payment, 
costumes,  and  training  at  the  expense  of  the  choregus,  a 
wealthy  man  to  whom  the  duty  of  providing  for  the  chorus 
was  assigned.  The  choregi  vied  with  each  other  in  providing 
lavishly  for  the  worship  of  the  god  and  the  entertainment 
of  the  people.  The  number  of  poets  who  competed  at  the 
greater  Dionysia  was  probably  three,  each  of  whom  had  to 
offer  three  tragedies  and  a  satyr  drama.  Such  a  series  of 
four  pieces  is  called  a  tetralogy,  and  the  three  tragedies 
without  the  satyr  drama  are  spoken  of  as  a  trilogy.  iEschy- 
lus  is  said  to  have  introduced  the  system  of  competing  with 
tetralogies,  and  to  have  combined  with  it  the  rule  that  the 
four  pieces  must  be  connected  in  subject.  Certainly  some 
of  his  tetralogies  were  thus  connected,  but  others  were 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DRAMA     185 

formed  of  four  plays  on  different  subjects.  It  is  said  that 
Sophocles  competed  with  single  plays,  but  this  may  mean 
merely  that  the  plays  forming  his  tetralogies  were  not 
connected.  The  tragic  chorus,  like  that  of  the  dithyramb, 
consisted  originally  of  fifty  persons,  but  this  number  was 
divided  among  the  four  pieces  of  the  tetralogy,  so  that  the 
chorus  in  any  one  piece  numbered  only  twelve  until  Soph- 
ocles increased  the  number  to  fifteen. 

The  poet  received  the  chorus  not  in  his  capacity  as 

poet,  but  as  chorodidascalus,  or  trainer  of  the  chorus,  and 

the  archon  did  not  care  officially  whether  the 

e  poe  an        -.      g^m^ed  to  him  was  written  by  the  per- 
tne  actors.         *     J  -  J  r 

son  who  asked  for  a  chorus  or  not.     Originally 

the  poet  really  did  train  the  chorus,  and  took  the  actor's 
part  himself,  but  after  the  introduction  by  iEschylus  of  a 
second  actor  the  poet  was  unable  to  take  both  actors'  parts, 
and  acting  began  to  become  a  profession.  Sophocles  in- 
troduced a  third  actor,  and  from  this  time  acting  became 
more  and  more  professional,  and  the  poets  ceased  to  act  in 
their  own  tragedies.  There  were  never  more  than  three 
actors  in  Greek  tragedies,  but  several  parts  could  be  taken 
by  one  actor,  and  there  were  frequently  supernumeraries 
who  did  not  speak  but  served  as  companions,  servants,  or 
followers  of  the  chief  personages. 

The  poets  as  well  as  the  actors  were  paid  by  the  state', 
the  amount  of  the  payment  varying  at  different  times,  and 

probably  also  depending  upon  the  reputation 
and^rizes        °^  *^e  re°ipient-     A  prize  was  assigned  to  the 

successful  poet,  and  in  the  fourth  century  the 
chief  actor  (protagonist)  also  received  a  prize.  What  the 
value  of  these  prizes  was  we  do  not  know.  Undoubtedly 
the  honor  was  the  chief  consideration,  as  the  competitors 
received  payment  for  their  labors  irrespective  of  the  prizes. 
The  prizes  were  awarded  by  a  jury  chosen  by  lot  from  a  list 
prepared  by  the  senate  and  the  clioregi  interested.  The 
successful  choregus  was  rewarded  only  by  the  honor  of  the 


186  GREEK  LITERATURE 

victory,  in  memory  of  which  he  set  up  an  inscription  in  a 
public  place. 

In  the  earliest  times  the  tragic  performances  took  place 
in   any  convenient  open  space  near  the  temple  or  sacred 

place  of  Dionysus,  for  the,  choral  songs  and  the 
,  e  trimi  1Ve  single  actor  needed  no  elaborate  preparations. 

The  actor  did,  however,  need  a  tent  in  which 
he  could  change  his  costume,  and  it  was  natural  to  put  the 
tent  close  to  the  place  where  the  chorus  sang  and  danced. 
This  interfered  with  the  view  from  one  side,  and  the  audi- 
ence therefore  grouped  itself  not  in  a  circle,  but  in  a  semi- 
circle or  a  larger  arc.  But  the  performance  could  not  be 
seen  well  except  by  those  in  the  front  row  of  spectators  if  all 
were  on  the  same  level,  and  therefore  the  spectators  arranged 
themselves  on  .the  slope  of  a  hill  overlooking  the  dancing 
place,  which  was  called  the  orchestra.  Then,  since  the  slope 
did  not  curve  about  the  circular  orchestra,  wooden  seats  were 
built  out  at  right  and  left.  Then  in  the  place  of  the  tent 
a  wooden  structure  was  erected,  which  was  still  called  the 
scene  (the  Greek  word  skene  means  tent).  The  theatre  now 
consisted  of  a  circular  orchestra,  at  one  side  of  which  was  a 
long  scene,  while  from  all  the  other  sides  rose  tiers  of  seats. 
This  was  the  early  form  of  tho  theatre,  and  it  remained  the 
same  except  in  details  as  long  as  tragedies  in  the  manner 
of  iEschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  continued  to  be 
presented. 

The  great  Dionysiac  theatre  at  Athens,  the  earliest 
stone  theatre  in  the  city,  was  not  built  un^il  the  fourth 
The  theatre  century,  when  the  great  days  of  Attic  tragedy 
in  the  fifth  were  passed,  nor  are  there  anywhere  re- 
century,  mains  of  any  theatre  of  the  fifth  century. 
Probably,  however,  the  theatres  of  the  fourth  century 
merely  transferred  to  stone  the  forms  of  the  wooden  struc- 
tures of  the  earlier  time,  and  therefore  the  ruins  of  stone 
theatres  help  to  give  an  idea  of  what  the  earlier  buildings 
were.     The  orchestra  kept  its  circular  form,  and  the  scene 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DRAMA     187 

remained  as  it  had  been,  but  in  front  of  the  scene  was 
placed  the  proscenium,  with  a  row  of  columns  forming  a 
background  to  the  orchestra,  and  at  the  right  and  left  were 
the  parascenia,  wings  of  the  scene  building  which  projected 
toward  the  seats  and  the  orchestra.  Between  the  para- 
scenia  and  the  seats  were  the  parodoi,  or  entrances,  through 
which  the  chorus  came  into  the  orchestra  and  the  spec- 
tators reached  the  seats.  There  were  also  doors,  sometimes 
as  many  as  three,  in  the  proscenium,  through  which  actors 
who  did  not  come  in  by  the  parodoi  might  enter.  The 
chorus,  twelve — later  fifteen — in  number,  arranged  in  three 
rows  of  four  or  five  or  in  four  or  five  rows  of  three,  sang 
and  danced  about  the  altar  of  Dionysus,  which  stood  in 
the  middle  of  the  orchestra.  The  actors,  who  were  dis- 
tinguished from  the  chorus  by  more  gorgeous  robes,  high 
head  coverings,  and  buskins  with  soles  so  thick  as  to  in- 
crease considerably  the  stature  of  the  wearer,  also  appeared 
in  front  of  the  proscenium.  Whether  they  acted  in  the 
orchestra  on  the  same  level  as  the  chorus  or  upon  a  raised 
platform  in  the  fifth  century  is  not  absolutely  certain,  but 
the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  platform  are  not  convincing. 
Even  if  there  was  a  platform,  it  can  not  have  been  very 
high,  for  the  actors  had  evidently  free  intercourse  with  the 
chorus.  In  Hellenistic  times  and  later,  when  the  chorus 
had  lost  its  importance,  the  actors  appeared  upon  a  high 
stage,  but  in  the  fifth  century  this  was  not  the  case. 

The  scenery  varied  little.     As  a  rule,  the  proscenium, 

with  its  columns  and  openings  between  them,  served  as  the 

background,  representing  a  palace  or  a  temple. 

Scenery  and     There  probably  even  in  the  fifth  century, 

contrivances.  *  •'  J 

a  second  story  from  which  gods  could  be  made 

to  appear  by  means  of  a  machine,  which  is  not  clearly  de- 
scribed. Partial  changes  of  scenery  were  accomplished  by 
means  of  periacti,  triangular  prisms  with  different  pictures 
painted  on  the  three  sides.  These  could  be  revolved,  thus 
showing  different  views  to  the  spectators.     There  was  also 


188  GREEK  LITERATURE 

a  machine  called  the  ekkyklema,  by  means  of  which  the 
interior  of  a  temple  or  house  could  be  shown  to  the  spec- 
tators, or  persons  could  be  brought  out  from  the  house  into 
view.  There  seems  to  have  been  a  curtain  which  could 
hide  part  of  the  orchestra  from  the  audience  until  the  play 
began.     This  may,  however,  belong  to  later  times. 

The  subjects  of  Greek  tragedies  were  almost  invariably 
mythological.  The  audience,  therefore,  knew  the  main 
linesol  the  plot  beforehand,  though  the  tragic  poets  did 
not  hesitate  to  change  details  of  the  myths  for  dramatic 
purposes.  The  "  three  unities  "  were  observed  in  almost  all 
cases  :  unity  of  place — that  is,  there  was  no  change  of  scene ; 
unity  of  time — that  is,  the  action  of  the  play  was  supposed 
to  take  place  in  one  day ;  unity  of  action — that  is,  the  whole 
course  of  the  play  was  consistent  and  continuous.  The 
unities  were,  however,  treated  with  some  freedom. 

The  part  of  a  Greek  play  which  precedes  the  entrance 
of  the  chorus  is  called  the  prologue.  In  it  the  circum- 
stances and,  so  far  as  is  necessary,  the  plot  are  made  clear 
to  the  audience.  The  entrance  song  of  the  chorus  is  the 
parodos.  Songs  sung  by  the  chorus  after  its  entrance  are 
called  stasima.  The  parts  of  a  play  between  the  stasima 
are  called  episodes.  These  correspond  roughly  to  the  acts 
of  a  modern  drama,  and  each  stasimon  may  be  regarded  as 
a  musical  interlude  separating  two  acts,  though  originally 
the  musical  portions  were  much  more  important  than  the 
acts  themselves.  The  part  of  the  play  after  the  last  stasi- 
mon is  called  the  exodus.  By  means  of  the  stasima  the 
play  is  divided  into  four  or  five  acts.  Lyric  songs  sung  as 
solos  by  an  actor  are  called  monodies,  and  a  lyric  dialogue 
between  the  chorus  and  an  actor  is  called  a  commos.  The 
.  monody  and  the  commos  are  not  necessary  parts  of  a  play, 
some  plays  consisting  only  of  spoken  dialogue  and  choral 
songs. 


CHAPTEE  XVII 

^3SCHYLUS 
JEschylus,  525-456  b.  c. — Life  and  works — Analysis  of  extant  plays. 

The  permanent  features  of  Greek  tragedy  were  fixed  by 
the  first  great  tragic  poet,  iEschylus.  He  was  the  son  of 
Euphorion,  of  a  noble  family  of  Eleusis,  and 
was  born  at  Eleusis  in  525  B.  c.  He  died  in 
Sicily  in  456  b.  c.  A  poetic  legend  narrates  that  once, 
when  the  young  iEschylus  had  fallen  asleep  in  a  vineyard, 
the  god  Dionysus  appeared  to  him  and  told  him  to  compose 
tragedies.  In  obedience  to  the  divine  behest  he  began  his 
poetic  career  while  still  a  youth,  and  continued  to  write 
tragedies  throughout  his  life.  His  first  recorded  public 
appearance  in  a  tragic  contest  was,  however,  in  the  seven- 
tieth Olympiad,  500-497  b.  c,  when  he  competed  with 
Pratinas  and  Choerilus.  His  first  victory  was  won  in  484 
B.  c,  when  he  was  forty  years  of  age,  and  he  is  said  to  have 
won  the  prize  twenty-eight  times  in  all.  During  the  Per- 
sian wars  he  fought  at  Marathon  and  Salamis,  and  the 
courage  he  showed  at  Marathon  was  recorded  on  his  tomb- 
stone. About  474  b.  c.  he  went  to  Sicily  to  visit  the  court 
of  Hiero.  Three  reasons  have  been  assigned  for  his  de- 
parture from  Athens.  He  is  said  to  have  been  angry  be- 
cause the  epigram  of  Simonides  in  honor  of  those  who 
fell  at  Marathon  was  preferred  to  his  own,  or  because  the 
tragic  prize  was  given  to  Sophocles.  But  the  first  of  these 
events  took  place  in  489  b.  c,  and  the  second  in  468,  so 
that  neither  can  have  affected  his  action  in  474.    The  third 

189 


190  GREEK  LITERATURE 

reason  given,  that  he  was  charged  with  profaning  the  mys- 
teries, can  not  be  disproved,  except  by  the  fact  that  he 
afterward  returned  to  Athens.  The  real  reason  was  with- 
out doubt  his  own  fame,  which  led  Hiero  to  desire  his 
presence.  In  472  he  was  again  in  Athens,  where  he  brought 
out  the  Persians.  He  died  in  the  neighborhood  of  Gela, 
in  Sicily,  in  456  B.  c,  but  how  long  he  had  been  in  Sicily 
at  that  time  is  unknown. 

Born  at  Eleusis,  the  seat  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
^Eschylus  was  surrounded  from  the  beginning  by  an  atmos- 
The  character  Pnere  of  religion,  which  had  its  effect  upon 
ofiEschyius  his  character,  as  shown  in  his  poetry.  The 
and  his  plays,  period  in  which  he  lived  was,  moreover,  a  time 
of  peculiar  religious  fervor,  especially  at  Athens.  In  his 
youth  came  the  Ionic  revolt  and  the  sack  of  Sardis  by 
Asiatic  Greeks  assisted  by  Athenians  and  Eretrians,  which 
brought  the  hosts  of  Persia  against  Greece.  When  he  was 
thirty-five  years  old  he  stood  with  ten  thousand  Athenians 
and  one  thousand  Plataeans  opposed  to  the  great  army  sent 
by  Darius,  and  took  part  in  a  victory  which  would  have 
been  impossible  without  the  aid  of  the  gods,  who  gave  the 
Greeks  active  assistance.  Ten  years  later  the  innumerable 
hosts  of  Xerxes  were  shattered  and  destroyed  at  Salamis. 
Here,  too,  the  gods  showed  their  power  unmistakably,  pun- 
ishing by  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  the  overweening  pride 
of  the  Persian  king.  Such  events  as  these  awoke  in  the 
Athenians  of  the  time  a  spirit  of  patriotic  and  religious 
exaltation  which  finds  its  highest  expression  in  the  poetry 
of  ./Eschylus.  The  gods  are  ever  present  in  his  tragedies, 
punishing  the  evil  deeds  of  men,  avenging  the  crimes  of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children,  and  especially  bringing  to 
naught  those  who  sin  through  pride.  The  subjects  of  all 
the  plays  of  iEschylus  are  mythological  save  one,  and  that 
one  is  The  Persians,  in  which  the  punishment  of  the  pride 
of  the  Persians  is  portrayed.  Among  the  myths  iEschylus 
chose  those  in  which  the  power  of  the  gods  and  of  fate  is 


^SCHYLUS  191 

most  evident.  Of  seventy  (or,  according  to  Suidas,  ninety) 
tragedies  which  he  wrote,  only  seven  have  been  preserved, 
though  the  titles  of  many  others  are  known,  and  a  consid- 
erable body  of  fragments  exists.  The  seven  extant  plays, 
in  the  probable  chronological  order  of  their  composition, 
are  The  Suppliants,  The  Persians,  The  Seven  agaifist  Thebes, 
The  Prometheus  Bound,  The  Agamemnon,  The  Choephori, 
and  The  Eumenides,  the  last  three  of  which  form  the  only 
extant  trilogy,  and  are  spoken  of  collectively  as  The  Aga- 
memnon Trilogy  or  The  Oresteia. 

The  earliest  play  is  The  Suppliants,  but  its  exact  date 
is  unknown.  The  structure  of  the  play  is  extremely  sim- 
ple, two  actors  only  are  employed,  and  the  sec- 
e  upp  i-  on(j  ac^or  appears  but  twice.  Dialogue  is 
sparingly  used,  and  more  than  half  the  play  is 
choral,  the  dialogue  being  for  the  most  part  between  a 
single  actor  and  the  chorus,  which  consists  of  fifty  persons, 
as  it  represents  the  fifty  daughters  of  Danaus.  The  scene 
is  laid  near  Argos,  by  the  seashore.  The  fifty  daughters  of 
Danaus,  who  have  fled  from  Egypt  to  avoid  marriage  with 
their  cousins,  enter,  led  by  their  father.  They  take  their 
places  about  the  altars  of  the  gods  and  chant  a  prayer. 
Then  follows  a  short  conversation  between  the  maidens 
and  their  father.  The  king  of  Argos  then  appears,  and 
the  maidens  implore  his  assistance.  A  long  dialogue  fol- 
lows, in  which  the  king's  doubts  are  overcome  by  the  ear- 
nest entreaties  of  the  suppliants,  and  he  promises  to  protect 
them.  Danaus  then  comes  forward  and  thanks  the  king, 
who  sends  him  with  some  attendants  to  the  city  to  offer 
prayers,  and  presently  follows  to  call  an  assembly  of  the 
Argives.  During  the  presence  of  the  king  Danaus  is  a  silent 
spectator  until  the  last,  when  he  addresses  him  in  thanks. 
A  slight  change  would  have  made  his  presence  altogether 
unnecessary.  The  chorus,  left  alone  by  the  king's  depar- 
ture, sing  a  long  hymn  to  Zeus.  Then  Danaus  returns  with 
the  news  that  the  people  of  Argos  have  agreed  to  protect 


192  GREEK  LITERATURE 

them.  This  is  followed  by  a  song  of  thanksgiving.  Danaus 
then  sees  the  ship  of  the  fifty  sons  of  iEgyptus,  and  after 
pointing  it  out  to  his  daughters  in  an  excited  speech,  goes 
to  give  the  alarm.  A  choral  song  of  lamentation  follows. 
Then  there  enters  a  herald  from  the  ship,  who  orders  the 
maidens  to  follow  him.  His  rough  and  overbearing  words 
are  met  by  piteous  appeals  for  mercy.  Now  the  king  ap- 
pears and  a  violent  debate  takes  place  between  him  and  the 
herald.  This  is  the  only  important  dialogue  in  the  play, 
the  only  one  which  could  not  easily  be  eliminated.  The 
herald  is  finally  discomfited  and  goes  off  to  the  ship. 
The  king  also  goes  away,  and  the  chorus  sings  a  short  song. 
Then  Danaus  comes  to  lead  his  daughters  to  the  city,  and 
all  leave  the  theatre  with  prayers  for  their  protectors  and 
themselves. 

Throughout  this  play  there  is  little  or  nothing  which  a 
modern  playwright  would  call  dramatic  action.  The  plot 
is  so  simple  as  hardly  to  deserve  the  name  of  plot  at  all — the 
maidens  enter,  ask  for  protection,  receive  the  promise  they 
desire,  and  are  actually  protected,  though  there  is  no  con- 
flict between  protectors  and  pursuers  except  in  words.  The 
chief  interest  centres  in  the  chorus,  the  actors  being  quite 
subordinate.  All  this  shows  how  near  The  Suppliants 
stands  to  the  primitive  drama  of  Thespis.  But  in  dignity 
and  force  of  expression  and  in  lyric  beauty  this  play  is  far 
from  primitive,  and  the  serious,  exalted  religious  feeling  of 
iEschylus  is  as  evident  here  as  in  the  later  dramas.  In  the 
first  ode  the  chorus  prays  : 1 

May  God  good  issue  give ! 
And  yet  the  will  of  Zeus  is  hard  to  scan : 

Through  all  it  darkly  gleams, 
E'en  though  in  darkness  and  the  gloom  of  chance 

For  us  poor  mortals  wrapt. 

Safe,  by  no  fall  tripped  up, 

1  Suppliants,  78  ff.,  Plumptre's  translation. 


.       AESCHYLUS  193 

The  full-wrought  deed  decreed  by  brow  of  Zeus; 

For  dark  with  shadows  stretch 
The  pathways  of  the  counsels  of  his  heart, 

And  difficult  to  see. 
And  from  high-towering  hopes  he  hurleth  down 
To  utter  doom  the  heir  of  mortal  birth ; 

Yet  sets  he  in  array 

No  forces  violent ; 
All  that  gods  work  is  effortless  and  calm : 

Seated  on  holiest  throne, 

Thence,  though  we  know  not  how, 

He  works  his  perfect  will. 

And  again  in  a  later  ode  : 1 

Oh  king  of  kings !  and  blest 
Above  all  blessed  ones, 
And  power  most  mighty  of  the  mightiest ! 
O  Zeus  of  high  estate ! 
Hear  thou  and  grant  our  prayer ! 

The  Suppliants  belonged,  to  a  trilogy  and  was  followed 
by  The  Danaides,  a  play  treating  of  the  marriage  of  the 
daughters  of  Danaus  and  the  sons  of  iEgyptus.  This  may- 
have  been  followed  by  The  Makers  of  the  Bridal  Chamber, 
or  The  Suppliants  may  itself  have  followed  The  Egyptians. 
These  matters  are  uncertain,  and  are  of  comparatively  little 
importance.  The  play,  with  its  simplicity  and  grandeur, 
shows  what  ^Eschylus  could  accomplish  even  before  he  had 
learned  to  make  full  use  of  the  second  actor. 

The  Persians  was  produced  at  Athens  in  472  B.  c,  as 
the  second  of  four  plays,  Phineus,  The  Persians,  Glaucus, 
_    _     .         and  Prometheus,  the  last  of  which  was  a  satyr 

Tlie  Persians. 

drama.  There  seems  to  have  been  no  connection 
of  subject  between  these  plays.  The  Persians  was  repeated, 
possibly  with  some  changes,  at  Syracuse  at  the  request  of 
Hiero.  This  is  the  only  historical  tragedy,  the  only  trag- 
edy the  subject  of  which  is  not  mythical,  that  has  come 

1  Suppliants,  507  ff.,  Plumptre's  translation. 


194  GREEK  LITERATURE 

down  to  us,  and  in  this  recent  history  is  treated  so  as  to 
make  it  seem  as  remote  as  the  ancient  myths.  The  subject 
is  the  defeat  of  the  Persians  under  Xerxes,  especially  the 
battle  of  Salamis,  which  took  place  at  the  very  doors  of  the 
Athenians  only  eight  years  before  the.  performance  of  the 
play.  But  the  scene  is  laid  at  the  Persian  capital  of  Susa ; 
the  chorus  consists  of  elderly  Persian  nobles;  the  actors 
represent  Atossa,  the  mother  of  Xerxes ;  the  ghost  of  Da- 
rius, Xerxes's  father ;  a  messenger  who  tells  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Persian  forces,  and  finally  Xerxes  himself. 
Everything  is  removed  away  from  Greece,  and  the  great 
battle,  far  from  being  represented  before  the  eyes  of  the 
spectators,  is  told  by  a  Persian  to  Persians.  Not  a  single 
Greek  is  mentioned  by  name  in  the  entire  play.  At  the 
beginning,  the  chorus  enters,  describing  the  vast  host  now 
absent  in  Greece ;  then  Queen  Atossa,  disturbed  by  dreams, 
asks  the  chorus  about  the  Greeks  and  the  absent  Persian 
host,  and  receives  information,  which  is  interrupted  by  the 
arrival  of  the  messenger  to  tell  of  the  defeat.  The  de- 
scription of  the  battle  of  Salamis  is  wonderful  in  its  clear- 
ness and  its  poetic  beauty.  After  lamentations  by  the 
chorus  Atossa  prepares  to  invoke  the  shade  of  the  dead 
Darius,  to  whom  the  chorus  sings  an  invocation.  The 
ghost  appears  and  declares  that  the  defeat  of  the  host  was 
foreordained  as  a  punishment  for  excessive  pride,  and  he 
tells  of  the  further  misfortunes  of  the  Persians  after  the 
battle  of  Salamis.  His  disappearance  is  followed  by  a 
mourning  song  of  the  chorus.  Presently  Xerxes  arrives, 
and  the  remainder  of  the  play  consists  of  laments  by  Xerxes 
and  the  chorus. 

Here,  as  in  The  Suppliants,  the  structure  of  the  play  is 
simple.  There  are  no  complications  requiring  disentan- 
gling, no  surprises  prepared  for  the  audience.  From  the 
beginning  the  end  is  not  only  known  by  all  the  Greek 
hearers,  but  also  half  predicted  by  the  forebodings  of 
Atossa  and  the  chorus.     The  chorus  itself,  though  not  so 


AESCHYLUS  195 

important  as  in  The  Suppliants,  is  still  indispensable  to 
the  progress  of  the  play,  and  far  more  than  half  the  time 
of  performance  must  have  been  occupied  by  the  choral 
songs.  The  second  actor  is  more  necessary  here  than  in 
The  Suppliants,  and  the  play  shows  as  a  whole  more  ad- 
vanced dramatic  art. 

The  Seven  against  Ttyebes  was  produced  in  467  B.  c,  five 
years  after  The  Persians.  It  was  the  third  play  of  a  tril- 
The  Seven  °&y>  the  Laius  and  the  CEdipus  being  the  titles 
against  of  the  other  two.     The  title  of  the  satyr  drama 

Thebes.  was  ^e  $phinXt     in  the  Laius  the  origin  of 

the  curse  which  rested  on  the  house  of  Laius  is  explained. 
Laius  had  been  told  by  the  Delphic  oracle  that  "  if  he  died 
without  offspring  he  would  preserve  the  city  "  ;  but  he  dis- 
regarded the  warning  and  begot  a  son,  CEdipus,  whom  he 
exposed  as  an  infant  on  Mount  Oithaeron.  The  child  was 
saved,  however,  and  grew  to  manhood.  He  unwittingly  slew 
his  father  and  became  king  of  Thebes,  marrying  his  mother. 
In  the  CEdipus  he  discovers  who  his  wife  is,  and,  driven  by 
horror  at  the  discovery,  puts  out  his  eyes,  uttering  a  curse 
upon  his  two  sons,  Eteocles  and  Polynices,  that  "  they,  with 
spear  in  hand,  should  some  day  share  their  father's  wealth." 
In  The  Seven  the  curse  is  fulfilled.  Polynices  has  been  ban- 
ished from  Thebes  by  Eteocles,  who  rules  alone.  But 
Polynices  has  gone  to  Argos  and  collected  an  army  led  by 
six  chiefs  besides  himself,  and  now  the  army  is  at  the 
gates.  The  first  part  of  the  play  is  taken  up  with  forebo- 
dings and  prayers  by  the  chorus  of  Theban  maidens,  who 
are  rebuked  by  Eteocles.  A  messenger  enters  and  de- 
scribes with  great  spirit  and  in  minute  detail  the  hostile 
chiefs,  one  of  whom  is  stationed  against  each  of  the  seven 
city  gates.  Eteocles  had  previously  appointed  six  Theban 
warriors,  with  himself  as  the  seventh,  to  guard  the  gates, 
and  now  he  finds  that  Polynices  is  to  be  his  opponent. 
Although  the  chorus  tries  to  dissuade  him,  he  departs  for 
the  conflict.     A  choral  song  follows.     Now  a  messenger  en- 


196  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ters,  announcing  the  defeat  of  the  enemy  and  the  death  of 
Eteocles  and  Polynices,  each  slain  by  his  brother's  hand. 
The  chorus  breaks  forth  into  lamentation,  hardly  tempered 
by  thanksgiving  for  the  salvation  of  the  city : 

Great  Zeus !  and  ye,  O  gods ! 

Guardians  of  this  our  town, 

Who  save  in  very  deed 

The  towers  of  Cadmus  old, 

Shall  I  rejoice  and  shout 

Over  the  happy  chance 

That  frees  our  state  from  harm; 

Or  weep  that  ill-starred  pair, 
The  war-chiefs,  childless  and  most  miserable, 

Who,  true  to  that  ill  name 
Of  Polynices,  died  in  impious  mood, 

Contending  overmuch? 

Oh,  dark,  and  all  too  true 
That  curse  of  (Edipus  and  all  his  race ! 
An  evil  chill  is  falling  on  my  heart, 

And,  like  a  Thyiad  wild, 
Over  his  grave  I  sing  a  dirge  of  grief, 
Hearing  the  dead  have  died  by  evil  fate, 

Each  in  foul  bloodshed  steeped; 
Ah  me!    Ill-omened  is  the  spear's  accord.1 

The  bodies  of  the  slain  brothers  are  brought  in,  fol- 
lowed by  the  sisters,  Antigone  and  Ismene,  and  a  troop  of 
mourners.  The  chorus  joins  the  two  sisters  in  lamenta- 
tion. Presently  a  herald  enters  proclaiming  that  it  is  for- 
bidden to  bury  the  body  of  Polynices.  Antigone  declares 
that  she  will  bury  him,  and  half  of  the  chorus  takes  her 
part,  while  the  other  half  follows  Ismene  and  the  body  of 
Eteocles  from  the  theatre. 

This  play  shows  the  chorus  still  prominent,  but  not  so 
much  an  active  force  in  the  progress  of  events  as  hereto- 
fore. Eteocles  is  the  one  important  personage,  and  his 
character  is  drawn  in  strong,  vigorous  lines.     The  play  is 

1  deven,  804  ff. 


^ESCHYLUS  197 

full  of  warlike  spirit,  alongside  of  which  is  the  constant  feel- 
ing of  the  weight  of  the  curse  driving  Eteocles  to  his  final 
doom.  Two  actors  still  suffice  for  all  the  parts,  except  in 
the  last  scene.  Perhaps  this  scene,  which  seems  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles,  may  be  an  addition 
by  a  later  hand.  It  may  be,  however,  that  the  part  of  the 
herald  in  the  last  scene  was  taken  by  an  extra  performer, 
who  was  not  regarded  as  an  actor. 

The  Prometheus  Bound  formed  a  trilogy  with  the 
Prometheus  Unbound  and  the  Prometheus  the  Fire-Bringer. 
The  date  of  its  production  is  unknown,  but 
romet  eus  ^Q  structure  of  the  play,  in  which  the  dia- 
logue is  of  greater  importance  than  in  the  plays 
hitherto  considered,  shows  that  it  is  later  than  The  Seven 
against  Thebes.  The  subject  is  the  punishment  of  Prome- 
theus for  giving  fire  to  men  and  raising  them  from  their 
previous  low  condition.  Prometheus  is  at  the  opening  of 
the  play  fastened  to  a  rock  by  Hephaestus  and  his  helpers, 
Strength  and  Force.  Here  he  is  visited  by  the  chorus  of 
ocean  nymphs  and  their  father  Oceanus.  The  latter  goes 
away  when  Prometheus  refuses  to  accept  his  advice  and 
yield  to  the  will  of  Zeus,  but  the  chorus  remains  through- 
out in  sympathy  with  Prometheus.  The  maiden  Io,  who 
has  been  beloved  by  Zeus,  but  is  now  changed  to  a  heifer 
and  driven  in  long  wanderings,  tormented  by  a  gadfly  sent 
by  Hera,  comes  upon  the  scene,  and  Prometheus  tells  the 
story  of  her  past  and  future  wanderings,  and  prophesies 
that  one  of  her  descendants  is  to  set  him  free.  Prometheus 
is  strengthened  in  his  firm  resolution  to  endure  all  the 
hardships  Zeus  may  send  upon  him  by  the  foreknowledge 
that  Zeus  is  to  contract  a  marriage  from  which  is  to  spring 
a  son  who  shall  overthrow  his  father's  power.  Hermes,  the 
messenger  of  Zeus,  comes  to  order  Prometheus  to  explain 
the  meaning  of  this  prophecy  and  to  threaten  him  with 
dire  punishment  if  he  refuses.  Prometheus  is  not  moved 
from  his  resolution,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  great  storm 


198  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  earthquake,  in  which  the  rock,  upon  which  Prometheus 
is  hound,  falls  crashing  upon  him,  and  he  sinks  out  of 
sight. 

The  play  is  full  of  vigor  and  of  gloomy  power,  rendered 
less  oppressive  by  the  gentle  grace  of  the  maiden  chorus 
and  the  almost  comic  caution  of  the  old  Oceanus.  Zeus  is 
made  to  appear  as  a  harsh,  cruel  tyrant,  who  feels  no  grati- 
tude to  Prometheus  for  past  services,  and,  having  just  suc- 
ceeded in  overthrowing  his  father,  loves  to  show  his  newly 
won  power  by  harshness  and  violence.  Prometheus,  on  the 
other  hand,  excites  our  sympathy  by  his  courageous  endur- 
ance of  the  trouble  he  has  brought  upon  himself  by  his 
kindness  to  man.  His  character  dominates  the  entire 
play.  The  opposition  between  Prometheus,  the  hero  of  the 
play,  and  Zeus,  the  ruler  of  the  world,  for  whom  iEschylus 
shows  elsewhere  the  greatest  reverence,  is  left  at  the  end  of 
the  play  unabated.  This  must  have  been  changed  in  the 
Prometheus  Unbound,  in  which  Heracles,  descended  from 
Io,  frees  Prometheus,  who  becomes  reconciled  with  Zeus 
and  warns  him  of  the  danger  that  threatens  him  from  his 
intended  marriage  with  Thetis.  All  this  does  not  make  the 
character  of  Zeus,  as  it  appears  in  the  Prometheus  Bound, 
any  less  odious  or  more  to  be  worshiped,  but  iEschylus  ap- 
pears here  as  elsewhere  to  have  given  the  ancient  myth  the 
noblest  and  grandest  possible  expression  without  attempt- 
ing to  reconcile  it  in  all  respects  with  his  religious  belief. 
Whether  the  Prometheus  the  Fire-Bringer  was  the  first  play 
of  the  trilogy,  telling  of  the  gift  of  fire  to  men,  or  the  last, 
relating  to  the  establishment  at  Athens  of  a  special  wor- 
ship of  Prometheus,  is  uncertain.  In  its  present  isolated 
state  the  Prometheus  Bound  is  one  of  the  noblest  expres- 
sions of  mythological  religion,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
powerful  utterances  of  the  genius  of  ^Eschylus. 

The  Oresteia,  consisting  of  the  Agamemnon,  Choephori, 
and  Eumenides,  with  the  satyr  drama  Proteus,  was  pro- 
duced in  458  b.  c,  two  years  before  the  death  of  iEschylus. 


^SCHYLUS  199 

How  the  contents  of  the  Proteus  was  connected  with  the 
matter  of  the  rest  of  the  tetralogy  is  unknown.  The  three 
extant  plays  form  the  only  trilogy  preserved  to  ns,  and  the 
connection  between  them  is  so  close  that  each 
seems  incomplete  without  the  others.  It  is, 
however,  not  certain  that  all  the  trilogies  of  iEschylus  were 
formed  of  plays  so  closely  connected.  In  this  trilogy  the 
subject  is  the  terrible  story  of  the  curse  that  rested  on  the 
house  of  Atreus.  Tantalus,  the  grandfather  of  Atreus,  had 
killed  his  own  son  and  offered  the  flesh  to  the  gods  to  eat ; 
Pelops  his  son  had  killed  the  charioteer  Myrtilus ;  Atreus 
himself  had  killed  the  children  of  his  brother  Thyestes  and 
set  their  flesh  as  food  before  their  father ;  and  Agamemnon, 
son  of  Atreus,  had  sacrificed  his  daughter  Iphigenia  at 
Aulis  to  gain  fair  winds  for  the  Greek  fleet  to  sail  to  Troy. 
During  his  absence  at  Troy  his  wife  Clytsemnestra  yielded 
to  her  guilty  passion  for  his  cousin  iEgisthus  and  with  him 
usurped  the  royal  power  at  Mycenae.  In  the  Agamemnon 
the  long-absent  king  returns  proudly  from  the  capture  of 
Troy,  accompanied  by  a  numerous  retinue,  including  Cas- 
sandra, the  inspired  prophetess,  daughter  of  Priam.  He  is 
met  with  gentle  words  by  Clytsemnestra,  who  entices  him 
within  the  palace  and  murders  him  with,  the  help  of  iEgis- 
thus.  Cassandra  presently  shares  his  fate.  The  plot  is 
extremely  simple,  all  the  action  leading  steadily  to  the 
fatal  end.  In  the  Choephori  Orestes,  son  of  Agamemnon 
and  Clytsemnestra,  who  was  saved  from  death  and  sent  out 
of  the  country  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death  by  his 
sister  Electra,  returns,  and  with  Electra's  help  kills  ^Egis- 
thus  and  Clytaemnestra.  According  to  Greek  ideas  of 
right,  it  was  the  duty  of  Orestes  to  avenge  his  father's 
murder ;  yet  to  slay  one's  mother  is  a  most  dreadful  crime. 
The  conflict  between  two  duties  thus  lends  an  additional 
interest  to  the  situation.  There  is  still,  however,  no  com- 
plication of  plot,  but  everything  leads  straight  to  the  death 
of  Clytaemnestra  and  her  paramour.  After  her  death 
14 


200  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Orestes  is  haunted  by  the  Furies.     The  chorus,  consisting 
of  captive  Trojan  women,  asks  : 

What  phantoms  vex  thee,  best  beloved  of  sons 
By  thy  dear  sire  ?    Hold,  fear  not,  victory's  thine. 

But  Orestes  replies : 

These  are  no  phantom  terrors  that  I  see : 

Full  clear  they  are  my  mother's  vengeful  hounds. 

In  the  Bumenides,  Orestes,  pursued  by  the  Furies,  has 
fled  to  Delphi  and  sought  shelter  in  the  temple  of  Apollo. 
While  the  Furies  sleep,  Apollo  and  Hermes  aid  Orestes  to 
escape  to  Athens.  But  the  ghost  of  Clytaemnestra  awakes 
the  Furies,  who  pursue  Orestes.  At  Athens,  to  which  the 
scene  changes,  Orestes  is  tried  before  the  court  of  the 
Areopagus.  The  Furies  accuse  him,  Apollo  appears  as  his 
advocate,  and  after  Athena  has  cast  her  vote  in  favor  of 
Orestes  the  votes  of  the  judges  are  evenly  divided.  Then 
Athena  declares  Orestes  acquitted.  The  Furies  are  ap- 
peased by  the  institution  of  a  special  Attic  worship  of 
them  under  the  name  of  Bumenides,  or  Gentle  Ones.  In 
this  play,  while  law  and  justice  are  on  the  side  of  the 
Furies,  right  and  equity  demand  that  Orestes  be  acquit- 
ted, and  finally  the  scale  is  turned  by  the  divine  voice  of 
Athena.  The  curse  is  thus  dispelled  from  the  house  of 
Atreus.  Through  darkness,  gloom,  and  horror  the  gods 
have  led  us  to  the  light. 

As  is  seen  by  these  brief  summaries  of  his  extant 
dramas,  the  thoughts  of  iEschylus  are  grand  and  noble, 
style  and  His  somber  and  powerful  tragedies  are  full  of 
language  of  religious  feeling.  iEschylus  is  a  poet,  not  a 
.Eschyius.  philosopher,  and  his  expressions  in  regard  to 
the  gods  are  not  always  consistent ;  but  he  is  always  rever- 
ent, always  deeply  impressed  with  the  dependence  of  men 
upon  the  divine  will  or  law,  whether  this  is  regarded  as 
the  will  of  Zeus  or  as  a  fate  to  which  even  the  gods  are  sub- 


^ESCHYLUS  201 

ject.  These  deep  and  weighty  thoughts  are  expressed  in 
great,  sonorous  words  and  phrases,  sometimes  obscure,  but 
almost  always  magnificent  and  impressive.  In  his  lyric 
parts  ^Eschylus  equals  Pindar  in  grandeur,  and  is  hardly  in- 
ferior to  him  in  brilliancy.  Unfortunately  the  text  of  many 
of  the  choruses  is  so  corrupt  as  to  be  almost  incomprehen- 
sible. Like  his  contemporaries,  Pindar  and  Bacchylides, 
iEschylus  rejoices  in  new  compound  words,  which  are,  in 
his  case,  composed  with  a  view  to  grandeur  and  power 
rather  than  to  mere  picturesqueness  or  clearness.  His 
characters  are  gods  or  mighty  heroes — even  the  women  of 
^Eschylus  are  grand  rather  than  sweet,  powerful  rather 
than  tender — and  their  language  is,  even  in  the  dialogue, 
far  removed  from  the  speech  of  every-day  life.  In  spite  of 
this,  there  is  great  directness  and  even  simplicity  in  his 
dialogue,  corresponding  to  the  directness  and  simplicity  of 
the  action  of  the  plays.  In  many  cases,  as,  for  instance,  in 
the  closing  scene  of  the  Prometheus  Bound,  ^Eschylus 
evidently  paid  great  attention  to  spectacular  effect,  and  it 
is  doubtless  not  without  reason  that  the  ancients  ascribed 
to  him  many  innovations  in  the  arrangement  and  manage- 
ment of  the  theatre.  Incontestably  the  most  original 
dramatic  poet  of  Greece,  ^Eschylus  found  dramatic  poetry 
in  its  infancy  and  left  it  mature.  He  first  made  it  really 
dramatic  by  the  introduction  of  a  second  actor.  In  the 
Oresteia  he  adopts  the  third  actor,  introduced  by  Sophocles, 
but  does  not  derive  all  the  possible  advantage  therefrom. 
His  plots  are  simple,  without  any  of  the  complications 
which  are  made  at  once  possible  and  attractive  by  the 
greater  number  of  personages  employed  by  Sophocles  and 
Euripides.  Grand  as  they  are  in  their  simplicity,  the  plays 
of  ^Eschylus  are  not  so  perfect  in  detail,  so  delicately 
refined  in  plot,  nor  so  wonderful  in  delineation  of  charac- 
ter, as  those  of  Sophocles. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SOPHOCLES 

Sophocles,  497-405  b.  c. — His  life — His  innovations — Analysis  of 
his  extant  plays — His  style  and  composition. 

Sophocles  was  born  at  Colonus,  a  village  about  a  mile 
northwest  of  Athens,  in  497  b.  c,  twenty-eight  years  after  the 
birth  of  ^Eschylus.  His  father,  Sophilus,  was 
wealthy,  though  not  of  noble  descent.  The 
boy  Sophocles  was  carefully  educated,  receiving  instruction 
in  music  from  Lamprus,  a  well-known  teacher  of  the  time. 
He  excelled  in  personal  beauty,  in  dancing,  and  in  music,  so 
that  when  a  chorus  of  boys  was  to  chant  the  paean  of  vic- 
tory after  the  battle  of  Salamis  he  was  chosen  to  be  the 
leader.  The  report  that  he  "  learned  tragedy  from  iEschy- 
lus  "  probably  means  no  more  than  that  he,  in  common  with 
all  contemporary  tragic  poets,  accepted  the  innovations  in- 
troduced by  iEschylus,  and,  in  a  general  way,  learned  much 
from  him. 

The  first  appearance  of  Sophocles  as  a  tragic  poet  was 
in  468  b.  c,  when  he  was  twenty-eight  years  old.  iEschy- 
lus,  the  recognized  chief  of  his  profession,  was  one  of  the 
competitors,  and,  according  to  the  usual  story,  the  feelings 
of  the  audience  were  divided  between  the  two  poets,  the 
excitement  being  so  great  that  the  archon,  Apsephion,  ap- 
pointed the  ten  generals,  one  of  whom  was  Cimon,  to  act 
as  judges  of  the  contest,  instead  of  choosing  judges  by  lot 
in  the  usual  way,  and  the  generals  awarded  Sophocles  the 
prize.  The  story  may  be  rejected  without  hesitation,  so  far 
202 


SOPHOCLES. 

Statue  in  the  Lateran  Museum,  Rome. 


SOPHOCLES  203 

as  the  appointment  of  the  generals  as  judges  is  concerned, 
but  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  victory  of  Sophocles;  and 
from  this  time  his  career  was  one  of  almost  unvarying  suc- 
cess. More  than  one  hundred  plays  are  ascribed 
18  actlIJ.ty  to  him  (the  most  probable  number  being  per- 
haps one  hundred  and  twenty-three),  and  with 
these  he  won  eighteen  victories  at  the  city  Dionysia,  besides 
others  at  the  Lenaea.  As  each  victory  at  the  city  Dionysia 
was  won  by  four  plays,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  victorious 
with  more  than  half  his  tetralogies.  It  is  said,  moreover, 
that  he  never  fell  below  the  second  place,  and  that  no  other 
tragedian  ever  won  more  prizes  than  he.  For  over  sixty 
years  he  composed  a  tetralogy  every  second  year,  showing 
no  falling  off  in  invention,  imagination,  dramatic  skill,  or 
poetic  diction.  He  died  in  405  b.  c,  more  than  ninety  years 
of  age,  and  his  latest  tragedy,  the  (Edipus  at  Colonus,  was 
brought  out  after  his  death  by  his  grandson. 

As  a  boy  Sophocles  saw  the  defeat  of  the  Persians,  in 
his  early  manhood  Athens  was  rapidly  becoming  the  first 
power  in  Greece,  his  prime  is  the  period  of  the  influence  of 
Pericles,  and  his  later  years  were  spent  amid  the  varying 
fortunes  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  In  these  great  affairs 
Sophocles  took  his  part  as  became  an  Athenian 

is  po  itica     citizen.    He  was  not  a  politician,  but  was  twice 
activity.  * 

elected  general,  once  when  he  was  sent  with 

Pericles  to  put  down  the  insurrection  at  Samos  in  440  B.  c, 
and  again  later  when  he  was  a  colleague  of  Nicias.  He 
was  also  hellenotamias,  or  treasurer  of  the  tribute,  and  on 
more  than  one  occasion  he  served  as  ambassador.  But 
although  he  thus  took  part  in  public  affairs,  he  never  made 
them  his  chief  business,  but  was  throughout  his  life  a  poet ; 
and  it  is  useless  to  try  to  find  political  allusions  in  his  trage- 
dies. Many  such  allusions  have  been  pointed  out  by  modern 
scholars,  but  some  have  been  shown  by  the  dates  of  the 
plays  and  events  to  be  impossible,  while  the  rest  are  doubt- 
ful, and   none  is   so   clear  as  to  be   of  any  importance: 


204  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Whatever  his  political  views  were,  Sophocles  did  not  see  fit 
to  embody  them  in  his  dramas.  If,  as  seems  to  be  the  case, 
the  Sophocles  who  was  one  of  the  committee  of  ten  in  411 
b.  c.  was  really  the  poet,  that  does  not  show  that  he  be- 
longed to  the  oligarchical  party,  but  simply  that  he  was 
obliged  to  take  part  in  public  affairs  in  those  days  of  trouble 
at  Athens. 

Sophocles  was  also  the  priest  of  the  Attic  medical  hero, 
Amynus,  and  when,  in  420  B.  c,  the  worship  of  the  god  of 

medicine,  Asclepius,  was  introduced  at  Athens, 
op  oc  es  a      Sophocles  "  received  the  god  into  his  house  and 

erected  an  altar  to  him,"  probably  in  the  sacred 
precinct  of  Amynus,  on  the  slope  of  the  Acropolis.  He  also 
wrote  a  paean  to  Asclepius,  which  was  sung  for  centuries. 
Because  he  had  received  the  god,  Sophocles  was  after  his 
death  elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  hero  and  worshiped  under 
the  name  of  Dexion,  "the  Keceiver."  These  facts  show 
that  Sophocles  accepted  and  reverenced  the  popular  religion, 
and  the  same  reverence  shows  itself  in  his  poetry.  There 
is  no  trace  of  skepticism  in  his  dramas,  but  everywhere 
religious  faith. 

Sophocles  was  married  to  Nicostrata,  by  whom  he  was 
the  father  of  Iophon.     Later  he  became  the  father  of  a  son 

named  Ariston  by  a  Sicyonian  woman  named 

His  sons  and    rpkeor£g#     Three  other  sons  are  mentioned,  but 
his  later  life.  .         .  ..  .  ■ 

nothing  is  known  oi  them,  nor  is  it  known  who 

was  the  father   of   Sophocles  the  younger,  though  he  is 

known  to  have  been  the  grandson  of  the  great  tragedian. 

Sophocles  was  a  man  of  kindly  and  genial  spirit,  a  pleasant 

companion,  and  a  lover  of  good  company.     His  life  seems 

to  have  been  a  happy  one,  though  the  story  is  told  that  his 

son  Iophon  brought  a  suit  against  him  in  his  old  age  and 

demanded  that  the  care  of  his  property  be  taken  away  from 

him,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  feeble-minded.     Instead  of 

making  his  defense  in  the  usual  manner,  Sophocles  is  said 

to  have  repeated  to  the  judges  portions  of  the  CEdipus  at 


SOPHOCLES  205 

Colonus,  which  he  was  then  writing,  and  in  this  way  to 
have  gained  all  their  votes. 

Several  innovations  in  the  dramatic  art  are  ascribed  to 
Sophocles.     The  most  important  of  these  is  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  third  actor,  which  made  the  dia- 
?1S  logue  henceforth  more  important  than  the  choral 

songs,  though  the  latter  continued  to  occupy 
nearly  half  the  time  of  the  performance.  The  second  inno- 
vation consisted  in  enlarging  the  chorus  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  members,  which  doubtless  occasioned  some  changes 
in  its  arrangement  and  movements.  Sophocles  also  ceased 
to  compose  tetralogies  of  four  plays  on  connected  subjects, 
but  competed  at  the  festivals  with  separate  plays — three 
tragedies  and  a  satyr  drama,  to  be  sure,  but  not  dealing 
with  one  myth.  This,  with  the  reduction  of  the  length  of 
the  lyric  portions  of  his  plays,  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
make  his  plots  less  simple  than  those  of  iEschylus  and  to 
introduce  more  dramatic  situations.  It  is  also  said  that 
Sophocles  was  the  first  to  use  painted  scenery  to  any  great 
extent,  and  several  minor  changes  in  the  costume  of  the 
chorus  as  well  as  in  the  music  employed  are  attributed  to 
him.  All  these  things  show  that  he  was  interested  in  the 
practical  side  of  his  profession  as  well  as  in  the  writing  of 
tragedies.  He  even  wrote  a  book  in  prose,  On  the  Chorus, 
defending  his  innovations.  In  his  early  days  he  was  him- 
self an  actor  in  his  plays,  but  his  weak  voice  compelled 
him  to  give  up  acting. 

Only  seven  complete  plays  of  Sophocles  remain.  These 
are,  in  the  probable  order  of  composition,  the  Ajax,  the 
Antigone,  the  Electra,  the  Trachinim,  (Edipus 
The  extant  ^e  King,  the  Philoctetes,  and  (Edipus  at  Colo- 
nus.  The  Antigone  was  performed  in  442  or 
441  if  the  story  is  true  that  Sophocles  owed  his  election  as 
general  in  440  to  the  enthusiasm  aroused  by  that  play ;  the 
Philoctetes  was  brought  out  in  409,  and  the  (Edipus  at 
Colonus  was  presented  in  401,  four  years  after  the  author's 


206  GREEK  LITERATURE 

death,  by  the  younger  Sophocles.  The  dates  of  the  other 
plays  are  unknown,  and  their  probable  order  is  determined 
by  considerations  of  style  and  composition. 

After  the  death  of  Achilles,  his  armor  was  given  by  the 
Greeks  to  Odysseus  as  the  greatest  surviving  chieftain. 
Ajax,  who  had  been  the  chief  competitor,  was  angry  and 
wished  to  kill  not  only  Odysseus,  but  also  the  Atridae, 
whom  he  regarded  as  responsible.  But  Athena  darkened 
his  mind,'  so  that  he  slew  the  captured  sheep  and  cattle  be- 
longing to  the  army,  thinking  that  he  was  punishing  his 
enemies.  At  this  point  the  Ajax  begins. 
Athena  exhibits  to  Odysseus  the  maddened 
Ajax,  exulting  in  his  imagined  revenge.  When  his  sense 
is  restored  to  him  he  determines  to  put  an  end  to  his  life, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  care  of  Tecmessa  and  the  chorus  of  Sal- 
aminian  sailors,  retires  to  a  lonely  place  and  falls  upon  his 
sword.  This  is  done  in  the  sight  of  the  audience.  Teucer, 
the  half-brother  of  Ajax,  wishes  to  bury  the  corpse,  but  is 
forbidden  by  Menelaus  and  Agamemnon.  Finally  Odys- 
seus intervenes  and  persuades  Agamemnon  to  withdraw  his 
opposition  to  the  burial. 

This  play  contains  many  striking  scenes.  The  farewell 
of  Ajax  to  his  son  Eurysaces  is  full  of  tenderness,  and  the 
hero's  last  words  before  he  falls  upon  his  sword  exhibit 
most  admirably  his  passionate,  fierce  nature  exalted  by  his 
terrible  resolution  to  a  height  of  gloomy  majesty.  The 
characters  of  Ajax,  Odysseus,  and  Tecmessa  are  carefully 
drawn  and  excellent  in  their  different  ways.  The  plot  is 
simple,  everything  leading  up  to  the  suicide  of  Ajax,  but  is 
admirably  worked  out,  the  details  showing  more  dramatic 
invention  than  is  found  in  the  plays  of  iEschylus.  The 
chorus  still  takes  a  somewhat  important  part  in  the  action, 
and  the  choral  parts  form  a  larger  proportion  of  the  entire 
play  than  is  the  case  in  some  of  the  other  dramas  of  Soph- 
ocles. The  third  actor  is  not  so  skilfully  used  as  in 
some  of  the  other  plays,  and  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  for 


SOPHOCLES  207 

assigning  the  Ajax  to  a  relatively  early  date.  It  is  a  de- 
fect that  nearly  a  third  of  the  play  is  taken  up  with  the 
dispute  concerning  the  burial,  after  the  climax  has  been 
reached  with  the  death  of  Ajax ;  but  we  must  remember 
that  the  burial  seemed  far  more  important  to  the  Greeks 
than  it  does  to  us,  and  also  that  the  Greeks  did  not  wish 
the  end  of  a  play  to  leave  them  with  their  spirits  violently 
disturbed  by  a  climax.  This  is  evident,  as  every  Greek 
tragedy  has  an  epilogue.  In  this  play  the  main  action  is 
so  simple  that  the  end  is  reached  before  the  play  has  at- 
tained the  requisite  length ;  the  discussion  of  the  burial  is 
therefore  more  protracted  than  seems  to  modern  readers 
desirable. 

In  the  Antigone  the  story  of  the  house  of  Labdacus  is 
taken  up  at  the  point  reached  in  The  Seven  against  Thebes 

(see  page  196).     Creon,  now  ruler  of  Thebes, 
e    n  1S~       has  forbidden  the  burial  of  Polynices  on  pain 

of  death.  Antigone  declares  to  her  gentle  sis- 
ter Ismene  her  intention  of  disobeying  the  command  of  the 
king,  who  represents  the  state,  and  burying  her  brother  in 
obedience  to  the  eternal  laws  of  right.  She  is  caught  in 
the  act  of  burying  Polynices  and  brought  before  Creon, 
who,  after  a  long  argument,  condemns  her  to  be  immured 
alive  in  a  subterranean  chamber.  Haemon,  Creon's  son, 
who  is  betrothed  to  Antigone,  tries  unsuccessfully  to  per- 
suade Creon  to  change  his  decision,  then  rushes  off  to  the 
prison  of  Antigone.  The  seer  Teiresias  also  tries  to  per- 
suade Creon,  but  fails  after  an  angry  discussion  ending 
with  some  dark  prophecies  of  evil  to  come.  But  hardly 
has  Teiresias  gone  when  Creon  yields  to  the  representa- 
tions of  the  chorus  of  Theban  elders  and  decides  to  free 
Antigone.  When  he  reaches  the  subterranean  chamber  he 
finds  that  Antigone  has  hanged  herself.  Haemon,  mad 
with  grief,  attempts  to  kill  his  father,  and  then  stabs  him- 
self. When  this  news  is  brought  to  his  mother,  Eurydice, 
she  also  puts  an  end  to  her  life.     Creon,  entering  with  the 


208  GREEK  LITERATURE 

body  of  Haemon,  learns  of  his  wife's  death.  The  play  ends 
with  a  commos,  in  which  Creon  laments  his  fate  and  the 
chorus  replies  with  trite  remarks. 

The  Antigone  has  always  been  one  of  the  most  popular 
of  Greek  tragedies  in  modern  times,  partly  because  of  the 
The  popular-  introduction  of  the  element  of  romantic  love, 
ity  of  the  An-  but  more  on  account  of  the  sympathy  awak- 
tigone.  ened  by  the  character  and  fate  of  Antigone. 

With  all  her  firm  determination  and  steadfastness  of  pur- 
pose she  exhibits  no  unwomanly  violence.  She  is  upheld 
by  the  consciousness  that  she  is  acting  in  accordance  with 
divine  right,  even  though  she  is  disobeying  the  decree  of 
the  state.  This  conflict  of  two  duties  is  the  most  impor- 
tant feature  of  the  plot.  Almost  equally  important  is  the 
lesson  taught  by  Creon's  misery,  that  pride  and  stubborn- 
ness lead  to  ruin.  The  firm  yet  womanly  character  of 
'  Antigone  is  brought  into  a  clear  light  by  comparison  with 
her  sister  Ismene,  a  gentle  maid,  who  recognizes  the  obli- 
gation to  bury  her  brother,  but  is  unable  to  disobey  the  de- 
cree of  Creon,  yet  who  is  willing  to  share  the  punish- 
ment of  Antigone,  even  though  she  has  not  shared  in  her 
act.  The  delineation  of  character,  one  of  the  greatest 
qualities  of  Sophocles,  is  especially  admirable  in  this  play. 

The  plot  of  the  Electro,  is  substantially  the  same  as  that 
of  the  Choephori  of  iEschylus,  the  slaying  of  Clytsemnestra 
and  iEgisthus  by  Orestes  and  Electra.  But 
whereas  in  the  Choephori  the  action  advances 
steadily,  without  even  any  apparent  obstacle,  to  the  end,  in 
the  Electra  various  minor  complications  are  introduced  to 
enhance  the  interest  of  the  situation.  Here,  too,  as  in  the 
Antigone,  two  female  characters  are  contrasted,  for  a  timid 
sister,  Chrysothemis,  is  given  to  the  fierce,  revengeful  Elec- 
tra, who  is  the  central  figure  throughout.  The  tone  of  the 
play  is  different  from  that' of  the  Choephori.  In  the  Choe- 
phori, Orestes,  the  central  figure,  is  filled  with  forebodings, 
and  at  the  end  he  sees  the  Furies  coming  upon  him  to 


SOPHOCLES  209 

avenge  his  mother's  death.  This  leads  up  to  the  Uumenides, 
in  which  the  guilt  of  Orestes  is  purged  away,  for  the  Gho'e- 
phori  is  not  an  independent  drama,  but  the  second  play  of 
a  trilogy.  The  Electra  of  Sophocles  is,  however,  different. 
Being  an  independent  drama,  it  must  come  to  a  satisfac- 
tory conclusion ;  consequently  Orestes  and  Electra  feel  no 
misgivings.  Their  deed  is  done  at  the  command  of  Apollo, 
and  with  the  death  of  Olytaemnestra  and  iEgisthus  the 
woes  of  the  house  of  Atreus  are  at  an  end. 

The  Trachinice,  named  from  the  chorus  of  Trachinian 

maidens,  is  on  the  whole  the  least  effective  of  the  extant 

plays  of   Sophocles.      Deianeira,  the  wife   of 

e   rac  in-    jjeracles,  has  been  left  with  her  children  at 

18B.  7 

Trachis,  where  for  many  months  she  has  been 
waiting  for  her  husband's  return.  She  hears  that  he  is  at- 
tacking (Echalia,  and  sends  her  son  Hyllus  to  greet  his 
father  and  find  out  about  his  plans.  After  Hyllus  has 
gone,  Lichas,  the  herald  of  Heracles,  comes  with  many  cap- 
tives, among  them  the  beautiful  Iole,  and  announces  that 
Heracles  has  taken  (Echalia  and  will  soon  be  present. 
Deianeira  finds  out  that  it  was  for  love  of  Iole  that  Hera- 
cles had  attacked  (Echalia,  and  after  some  misgivings 
sends  to  him  a  garment  impregnated  with  the  poisoned 
blood  of  the  centaur  Nessus,  which  the  centaur  himself  had 
told  her  would  act  as  a  charm  to  revive  her  husband's  love 
for  her  in  case  he  should  ever  prove  faithless.  Hyllus  re- 
turns and  tells  with  much  detail  how  his  father  put  on 
the  garment  and  began  to  perform  a  sacrifice,  when  the 
garment  clung  to  his  body  and  ate  his  flesh  with  burning 
pains.  Deianeira,  on  hearing  this  report,  goes  into  the 
house  and  stabs  herself.  Presently  Hyllus,  who  has  gone 
back  to  his  father,  returns  with  Lichas  and  a  retinue  of 
men  bearing  the  suffering  Heracles  upon  a  bier.  Now 
Heracles  learns  of  Deianeira's  innocent  purpose  and  her 
wretched  death  and  perceives  that  his  own  end  is  near. 
He  commands  Hyllus  to  bear  him  to  the  top  of  Mount 


210  GREEK  LITERATURE 

(Eta  and  lay  him  on  his  funeral  pyre,  and  to  marry  Iole. 
This,  Hyllus,  after  some  demur,  agrees  to  do. 

This  play  is  deficient  in  genuine  dramatic  action.  The 
chief  sufferer,  too,  Heracles,  although  he  owes  his  fate  to 
his  own  inconstancy,  suffers  for  a  fault  not  committed  in 
sight  of  the  audience,  and  therefore  seems  to  suffer  unde- 
servedly, yet  on  account  of  the  violence  of  his  anger 
against  Deianeira,  fails  to  arouse  our  complete  sympathy. 
Deianeira  herself,  who  is  really  the  central  character  of  the 
drama,  lacks  power,  and  her  death  occurs  when  the  play  is 
only  about  two-thirds  over.  Moreover,  the  provision  at  the 
end  of  the  play,  that  Hyllus  shall  marry  Iole,  who  has  in- 
nocently caused  the  death  of  his  father  and  mother,  is 
somewhat  shocking  to  our  taste.  There  are,  however,  fine 
narrative  and  descriptive  passages,  and  the  choral  odes  are 
of  great  beauty. 

In  (Edipus  the  King  a  pestilence  is  supposed  to  have 
fallen  upon  Thebes,  to  find  a  cure  for  which  Creon  has 

been  sent  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi.  He  returns 
Kinipus  the      and  reports   to   King  (Edipus  that  the  land 

must  be  cleansed  from  blood-guiltiness  by  the 
death  or  banishment  of  those  who  slew  King  Laius.  (Edi- 
pus utters  a  curse  against  the  murderer.  He  then,  at  the 
advice  of  the  chorus  of  citizens,  sends  for  Teiresias  to  learn 
how  the  murderer  can  be  found.  Teiresias  at  first  tries  to 
withhold  all  information,  but  at  last  names  (Edipus  as  the 
doer  of  the  murder.  (Edipus  angrily  refuses  to  believe  him 
and  declares  that  Creon  has  bribed  him  in  the  hope  of  obtain- 
ing the  royal  power.  The  violent  and  self-willed  nature  of 
(Edipus  is  clearly  exhibited.  By  degrees  the  truth  of  Teire- 
sias's  words  is  made  clear.  The  sole  survivor  of  the  retinue 
of  Laius  at  the  time  of  his  death  is  sent  for  in  the  hope  that 
he  may  prove  that  (Edipus  is  innocent.  Meanwhile  comes 
a  messenger  from  Corinth  saying  that  Polybus,  whom  (Edi- 
pus regarded  as  his  father,  is  dead.  (Edipus  is  relieved,  for 
he  had  been  told  by  an  oracle  that  he  should  kill  his  father 


SOPHOCLES  211 

and  marry  his  mother.  He  still  fears  to  return  to  Corinth 
lest  the  latter  prophecy  be  fulfilled.  The  messenger,  how- 
ever, declares  that  (Edipus  is  not  a  Corinthian  at  all,  but 
that  he  himself  received  him  as  a  babe  from  a  shepherd,  one 
of  the  servants  of  King  Laius.  This  shepherd  is  the  same 
man  who  was  with  Laius  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Jocasta 
now  recognizes  the  truth  of  the  oracles  and  the  horror  of  her' 
situation,  and  rushes  into  the  house  and  kills  herself.  The 
shepherd  enters,  and  (Edipus  soon  learns  that  he  is  indeed 
the  son  of  Laius  and  Jocasta,  that  he  has  slain  his  father 
and  married  his  mother.  Mad  with  horror,  he  enters  the 
house  and  puts  out  his  own  eyes.  At  the  end  of  the  play 
he  asks  Creon,  now  ruler,  to  banish  him  but  to  care  for  his 
two  daughters.  Creon  declares  that  he  must  find  out  the 
will  of  the  gods. 

(Edipus,  a  strong-willed  man,  honest  of  purpose,  but 
proud  in  the  conceit  of  his  own  honesty  and  ability,  de- 
clares that  he  will  discover  the  murderer^  of  Laius.  The 
audience,  knowing  the  myth,  knows  from  the  beginning 
that  (Edipus  himself  is  the  murderer,  sees  the  result  of 
each  action  beforehand,  and  watches  (Edipus  as  he  uncon- 
sciously hurries  himself  on  to  his  doom.  What  he  says 
has  a  different  meaning  to  himself  and  the  audience.  He 
is  sure  that  the  murderer  will  be  found  and  that  his  own 
power  and  happiness  will  be  increased.  The  audience 
knows  that  the  discovery  of  the  murderer  brings  ruin  to 
(Edipus.  This  is  one  form  of  the  irony  of  Sophocles,  in 
which  the  words  of  the  speaker  convey  to  the  audience  a 
meaning  different  from  that  which  he  himself  attributes  to 
them.  Nowhere  is  this  form  of '  irony  so  prominent  as  in 
this  play.  The  other  form  of  irony,  in  which  the  words 
convey  different  meanings  to  different  characters  in  the 
play,  is  also  exemplified  in  the  (Edipus  the  King,  though 
not  so  noticeably.  This  play  furnishes  also  a  good  example 
of  a  peripeteia,  or  sudden  change  from  happiness  to  misery, 
from  power  to  impotence,  or  the  reverse.     Here  (Edipus 


212  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  King,  blessed  with  royal  power,  a  beloved  wife,  and  chil- 
dren born  in  honorable  wedlock,  suddenly  becomes  a  poor 
blind  man,  murderer  of  his  own  father,  himself  the  father  of 
his  own  half  brothers  and  sisters,  and  the  cause  of  the  death 
of  her  who  had  been  both  his  wife  and  his  mother.  This 
takes  place  by  means  of  an  anagnorisis  or  recognition, 
which  was  frequently  employed  as  a  means  of  bringing  the 
peripeteia  to  pass.  For  these  reasons  among  others  the 
(Edipus  the  Xing  is  one  of  the  most  representative  Greek 
tragedies,  while  the  vigor  of  its  language,  the  liveliness  of 
its  dialogue,  the  sustained  interest  of  its  action,  and  the 
beauty  of  its  choral  parts  combine  to  make  it  a  work  of 
exceptional  importance. 

The  Philoctetes,  performed  in  409  B.  c,  is  based  upon  a 
story  told  in  the   Little  Iliad.     Philoctetes,   one   of  the 

Greek  chiefs,  to  whom  Heracles  had  left  his 
pvi    t  t         k°w  and  poisoned  arrows,  wounded  his  own 

foot  with  an  arrow,  and  the  wound  was  so 
offensive  that  the  Greeks  removed  him  to  the  island  of 
Lemnos.  Learning  from  an  oracle  that  Troy  could  not  be 
taken  without  the  arrows  of  Heracles,  the  Greeks  sent 
Odysseus  and  (according  to  the  Little  Iliad)  Diomedes, 
who  brought  Philoctetes  back  to  the  army,  where  he  was 
cured  of  his  wound.  Sophocles  presupposes  that  Lemnos 
is  a  deserted  island  and  that  Philoctetes  has  been  there  for 
ten  years.  The  Atridae  and  Odysseus  are  regarded  by  him 
as  the  authors  of  his  banishment.  Odysseus  could  not, 
therefore,  appear  before  Philoctetes  with  safety,  nor  would 
he  be  likely  to  persuade  him  to  return  to  the  army.  He 
therefore  takes  with  him  Neoptolemus,  the  young  and 
noble  son  of  Achilles  (not  Diomedes,  as  in  the  Little 
Iliad).  The  wily  Odysseus  persuades  the  honorable  young 
Neoptolemus  to  get  possession  of  the  bow  of  Heracles  by 
dissimulation,  but  the  noble  youth  is  so  filled  with  pity  for 
Philoctetes  in  his  misery  and  so  repentant  for  his  own  dis- 
honorable conduct  that  he  gives  back  the  bow  in  spite  of 


SOPHOCLES  213 

the  opposition  of  Odysseus.  Finally  Heracles  appears 
from  Olympus  and  commands  Philoctetes  to  return  to  the 
army. 

The  interest  of  the  play  is  found  in  the  character  of 
Philoctetes,  whose  terrible  sufferings  can  not  shake  his 
resolution  not  to  return  to  aid  the  Atridae,  and  the  opposi- 
tion between  the  wily,  scheming  Odysseus  (who  has  not 
here,  as  in  the  Odyssey,  heroic  courage)  and  the  upright, 
simple-minded,  honorable  Neoptolemus. 

In  the  (Edipus  at  Colonus  the  blind  wanderer  (Edipus, 

led  by  his  daughter  Antigone,  comes  to  Colonus  and  takes 

his  seat  in  the  sacred  grove  of  the  Eumenides. 

afcoTonur       He  iS  told  that  U  iS  a  gr0Ve    °f    "'noly    god" 
desses,"  and  remembers  that  he  is  to  die  at 

such  a  place.  Ismene  enters  and  reports  an  oracle  that 
the  country  in  which  his  body  shall  lie  is  to  be  blessed. 
This  oracle  (Edipus  tells  to  Theseus,  King  of  Athens,  who 
promises  to  protect  him.  Presently  Creon  comes,  and,  after 
trying  to  persuade  (Edipus  to  go  with  him,  carries  off  An- 
tigone and  Ismene  by  force.  Theseus  and  his  troops  pur- 
sue and  bring  them  back.  Polynices  tries  to  induce  his 
father  to  take  his  side  in  his  attack  upon  Thebes,  but  gains 
only  his  curse.  Finally  loud  thunder  announces  to  (Edipus 
that  his  end  is  near.  With  Theseus  he  retires  into  the 
grove,  from  which  a  messenger  returns  announcing  his 
sudden  and  mysterious  death. 

The  main  action  of  this  play,  the  death  of  (Edipus,  is 
little  dramatic,  yet  by  the  introduction  of  Creon  and 
Polynices  variety  and  liveliness  are  attained.  In  the 
scenes  with  these  two  characters  (Edipus  shows  his  native 
qualities  of  violence,  self-will,  and  harshness,  whereby  his 
calm  dignity  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  play  is 
brought  into  strong  relief.  No  other  Greek  tragedy 
breathes  an  air  of  such  gentleness  and  peace;  nor  does 
any  other  seem  to  show  such  love  of  nature  or  such  per- 
sonal attachment  for  any  place.    The  aged  Sophocles  seems 


214  GREEK  LITERATURE 

to  sing  a  farewell  hymn  in  honor  of  his  native  Colonus  in 
these  lines : 1 

Of  all  the  land  far  famed  for  goodly  steeds, 
Thou  com'st,  O  stranger,  to  the  noblest  spot, 

Colonus,  glistening  bright, 
Where  evermore,  in  thickets  freshly  green, 

The  clear-voiced  nightingale 

Still  haunts,  and  pour*  her  song, 

By  purpling  ivy  ai<}> 
And  the  thick  leafage  sacred  to  the  God, 

With  all  its  myriad  fruits,. 

By  mortal's  foot  untopched, 

By  sun's  hot  ray  unscathed, 

Sheltered  from  every  blast ; 
There  wanders  Dionysus  evermore," 

In  full,  wild  revelry. 
And  waits  upon  the  nymphs  who  nursed  his  youthv 
And  there,  beneath  the  gentle  dews  of  heaven, 
The  fair  narcissus  with  its  clustered  bells 

Blooms  ever,  day  by  day, 
Of  old  the  wreath  of  mightiest  goddesses:, 

And  crocus  golden-eyed ; 

And  still  unslumbering  flow 

Cephissus'  wandering  streams; 
They  fail  not  from  their  springs,  but  evermore, 

Swift-rashing  into  birth, 

Over  the  plain  they  sweep, 

The  land  of  broad,  full  breast, 

With  clear  and  stainless  wave ; 
Nor  do  the  Muses  in  their  minstrel  choirs, 

Hold  it  in  light  esteem, 

Nor  Aphrodite  with  her  golden  reins. 

The  brief  summaries  here  given  show  that  the  plots  of 
the  tragedies  of  Sophocles,  though  simple,  contain  more 
variety  than  is  found  in  those  of  ^Eschylus.  The  action 
leads  to  one  end,  which  is  known  to  the  audience  from  the 

1  (Ed.  Col.,  668  ff.,  Plumptre's  translation. 


SOPHOCLES  215 

beginning,  but  various  complications  are  introduced,  which 
keep  the  interest  and  even  the  curiosity  of  the  spectator 
The  plots  awake.  The  subjects  are,  like  those  of  the 
and  style  plays  of  iEschylus,  taken  from  the  ancient 
of  Sophocles.  myths  as  told  in  the  epic  poems,  but  Sophocles 
shows  a  preference  for  Attic  myths,  which  vEschylus  ap- 
pears to  have  avoided.  This  is  evident  from  the  titles  of 
the  lost  plays  quite  as  much  as  from  extant  dramas.  iEschy- 
lus  exhibits  in  grand  and  dignified  language  the  result  of 
the  decrees  of  fate  or  of  the  gods.  Sophocles,  too,  ex- 
hibits the  result  of  those  decrees,  but  he  shows  them  work- 
ing through  human  character.  His  personages  are  still 
heroic  in  action  and  in  language,  but  their  characters  are 
drawn  in  more  detail  than  iEschylus  employs,  and  their 
fate  is  brought  upon  them  not  so  much  by  the  direct  force 
of  divine  decrees  as  by  their_own  action,  which  is  itself, 
however,  caused  by  divine  will  acting  through  their  char- 
acters. This  adds  greatly  to  the  dramatic  force  of  the 
plays.  The  language  of  Sophocles  is  less  exalted  than  that 
of  JEschylus,  less  removed' from  the  language  of  daily  life, 
but  it  is  dignified  and  beautiful.  The  grandiloquence  and 
obscurity  of  iEschylus  are  given  up,  but  the  language  does 
not  approach  so  nearly  to  that  of  every-day  life  as  to  seem 
out  of  place  in  the  mouths  of  gods  and  heroes.  The 
choral  portions  are  as  a  rule  shorter  than  in  the  plays  of 
iEschylus,  and  the  chorus  takes  a  less  direct 

TIig  clioriisGS 

and  important  part  in  the  action  of  the  play, 
being  sometimes  little  more  than  a  group  of  interested 
spectators.  As  a  rule,  however,  the  chorus  joins  in  the 
action  to  some  extent,  and  the  choral  songs  are  all  directly 
connected  with  the  subject  of  the  play,  though  they  do  not 
always  help  materially  to  carry  on  the  action.  The  first 
stasimon  of  the  Antigone  is  sung  when  the  guard,  who  has 
reported  the  burial  of  Polynices,  has  just  gone  away  after 
being  threatened  with  torture  and  death  by  Creon  in  case 
the  doer  of  the  deed  is  not  discovered : 

15 


216  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Much  is  there  marvelous,  but  naught  more  marvelous  than  man. 
Over  the  foaming  sea  in  winter's  wind  he  goes,  moving  among  the 
waves  that  roar  around.  The  greatest  of  the  gods,  the  everlasting 
and  unwearied  earth,  he  wears  away,  wheeling  his  plowshare 
through  it  year  by  year,  forcing  the  mule  to  trace  his  furrow. 

The  flocks  of  nimble  birds  he  snares  and  makes  his  prey,  the 
herds  of  savage  beasts,  and  ocean's  watery  spawn,  with  netted  coils — 
this  ever  crafty  man.  He  masters  by  his  arts  the  creatures  of  the 
fields  and  of  the  hills.  He  brings  the  stiff-maned  horse  under  his 
yoke,  and  stubborn  mountain  bull. 

Speech,  too,  and  wind-swift  thought,  and  social  dispositions, 
these  he  learned ;  how  to  avoid  uncomfortable  frosts  when  skies  are 
clear,  and  storms  when  skies  are  foul— resourceful  ever.  Without 
resource  he  meets  no  dawning  day.  From  death  alone  he  shall  not 
win  release,  although  for  fell  disease  he  has  discovered  cures. 

So  with  a  subtle  ingenuity  of  skill,  beyond  all  reckoning,  now 
he  turns  toward  evil,  now  toward  good.  Honoring  his  country's 
laws  and  the  gods'  plighted  justice,  high  in  the  state  he  stands. 
No  state  has  he  with  whom  dishonor  dwells  by  reason  of  his 
crimes.  May  he  not  share  my  hearth  nor  think  my  thoughts  who 
does  such  deeds  of  sin. 

At  this  portentous  sight  I  am  amazed.  How  can  I  look  and 
not  confess  that  this  is  the  maid  Antigone  ?  Ah,  hapless  one ! 
Child  of  a  hapless  father  too,  of  (Edipus !  But  what  ?  They  do 
not  bring  you  here  defiant  of  the  king's  decrees  and  caught  in  folly  ?  * 

Here  the  might  of  man,  the  chief  subject  of  the  song, 
has  little  to  do  with  the  play,  but  the  underlying  thought 
of  the  necessity  of  righteousness  has  special  bearing  upon 
the  situation.  At  first  sight,  the  chorus  seems  to  have 
Antigone  or  Polynices  in  mind,  but  (with  the  irony  already- 
mentioned)  the  reference  is  really  to  Creon.  The  last 
paragraph,  although  spoken  by  the  chorus,  is  not  a  part 
of  the  ode,  but  serves  as  a  transition  to  the  dialogue  which 
follows. 

So  much  of  the  action  of  the  Greek  tragedy  is  supposed 
to  take  place  within  the  palace,  or  at  any  rate  out  of  sight 
of  the  audience,  that  the  part  of  the  messenger  is  of  great 

1  Antigone,  332  If.,  Palmer's  translation. 


SOPHOCLES  217 

importance.     It  was  indeed  originally  second  only  to  the 

part  of  the  chorus.     No  tragic  poet  was  more  conscious  of 

this  importance   than   Sophocles,  and   some   of  his  most 

striking  passages  are  in  the  reports  brought  by  messengers. 

The  most  remarkable  report  of  this  kind  is  that  in  the 

Electra^  giving  a  false  account  of  the  death  of 

™!!!fJL!L      Orestes.     The   success   of   Orestes  in   various 
messengers. 

trials  of  strength  and  skill  at  the  Pythian  games 
is  briefly  described  as  a  preparation  for  the  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  the  chariot-race.  In  this  ten  chariots  competed, 
but  eight  met  with  accidents,  leaving  only  an  Athenian 
chariot  to  contend  with  that  of  Orestes : 

Then  the  man 
From  Athens,  skilled  and  wily  charioteer, 
Seeing  the  mischief,  turns  his  steeds  aside, 
At  anchor  rides,  and  leaves  the  whirling  suige 
Of  man  and  horse  thus  raging.     Last  of  all, 
Keeping  his  steeds  back,  waiting  for  the  end, 
Orestes  came.     And  when  he  sees  him  left, 
His  only  rival,  then,  with  shaken  rein, 
Urging  his  colts,  he  follows,  and  they  twain 
Drove  onward  both  together,  by  a  head, 
Now  this,  now  that,  their  chariots  gaining  ground ; 
And  all  the  other  rounds  in  safety  passed, 
Upright  in  upright  chariot  still  he  stood, 
Ill-starred  one ;  then  the  left  rein  letting  loose, 
Just  as  his  horse  was  turning,  unawares 
He  strikes  the  farthest  pillar,  breaks  the  spokes 
Right  at  his  axle's  centre,  and  slips  down 
From  out  his  chariot,  and  is  dragged  along, 
With  reins  dissevered.     And,  when  thus  he  fell, 
His  colts  tore  headlong  to  the  ground's  mid-space ; 
And  when  the  host  beheld  him  fallen  thus 
From  off  the  chariot,  they  bewailed  him  sore, 
So  young,  so  noble,  so  unfortunate, 
Now  hurled  upon  the  ground,  and  now  his  limbs 
To  heaven  exposing.1 

1  Elebtra,  731  ff.,  Plumptre's  translation. 


218  GREEK  LITERATURE 

A  more  brilliant  description  it  would  be  hard  to  find  in 
Greek  literature. 

Sophocles  is  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  of  the  great 
Greek  tragic  poets.  He  found  the  drama  already  devel- 
oped by  the  genius  of  iEschylus  to  a  high  degree  of  beauty 
and  power,  and  he  carried  it  further  by  introducing  the 
third  actor  and  other  innovations,  by  refining  the  language 
employed,  by  giving  more  variety  to  the  plot,  which  he  en- 
riched with  many  fine  details,  and  by  perfecting  the  por- 
trayal of  character. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

EURIPIDES        • 

Euripides,  485-406  b.  c. — His  life— His  innovations ;  the  prologue; 
the  deus  ex  machina — His  political,  religious,  and  philosophical  ideas — 
Hatred  of  women — Analysis  of  the  extant  plays — Style  and  composi- 
tion— Popularity. 

The  third  of  the  great  Attic  tragic  poets,  Euripides, 
was  born  probably  in  485  b.  c.1     According  to  the  common 

.  story,  his  father,  Mnesarchus,  or  Mnesarchides, 

was  a  small  tradesman,  and  his  mother,  Cleito, 
sold  vegetables.  This  story  is,  however,  contradicted  by 
the  fact  that  Euripides,  when  a  boy,  was  allowed  to  take 
part  in  the  dance  in  honor  of  the  Delian  Apollo,  a  privi- 
lege granted  only  to  boys  of  good  birth.  Apparently,  then, 
the  poet  came  of  a  good  family.  He  received  a  careful  edu- 
cation and  was  able  to  devote  himself  to  study  and  poetry, 
which  seems  to  show  that  his  family  was  at  least  not  poor. 

It  is  said  that  when  Euripides  was  young  his  father  re- 
ceived an  oracle  that  his  son  would  be  honored  and  famous 
His  youth  an(l  would  win  crowns.  Therefore  the  boy  was 
and  educa-  trained  in  athletics,  which  some  have  thought 
tlon'  may  account  in  part  for  the  contempt  for  ath- 

letes he  expresses  once  or  twice  in  his  tragedies.    He  is  also 

1  This  is  the  date  given  in  the  Parian  Marble,  a  chronological  in- 
scription compiled  in  264  or  263  b.  c,  found  on  the  island  of  Paros  and 
now  in  England.  Another  story  makes  his  birth  take  place  at  Salamis, 
on  the  day  of  the  battle,  in  480  b.  c.  JEschylus  fought  in  the  battle, 
and  Sophocles  led  the  chorus  of  boys  who  sang  the  pzean  of  victory. 
The  three  great  tragic  poets  are  therefore  brought  together  in  a  strik- 
ing way.    In  fact,  the  story  is  too  good  to  be  accepted. 

219 


220  GREEK  LITERATURE 

said  to  have  practised  painting,  but  the  authority  for.  both 
these  statements  is  late,  and  may  rest  on  some  confusion 
of  the  poet  with  another  man  of  the  same  name.  At  any 
rate,  Euripides  turned  to  literary  pursuits  at  an  early  age, 
for  he  began  to  write  tragedies  when  he  was  only  eighteen 
years  old,  though  he  did  not  receive  a  chorus  until  455,  when 
he  was  nearly  thirty.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of 
Anaxagoras,  and  traces  of  that  philosopher's  teachings  are 
found  in  his  plays ;  but  he  is  also  said  to  have  been  taught 
by  Protagoras,  Prodicus,  and  Socrates,  all  of  whom  were 
much  younger  than  he.  In  all  probability  Euripides, 
whose  mind  was  open  to  receive  all  impressions,  and  whose 
intellect  was  remarkably  alert,  was  acquainted  with  the 
doctrines  of  all  the  philosophers  and  sophists  in  Athens — in 
fact,  some  trace  of  nearly  every  doctrine  known  to  have 
been  taught  in  his  day  can  be  found  in  his  extant  plays — 
and  he  was  naturally  inclined  to  speculation  on  abstruse 
matters ;  but  he  was  probably  not  a  regular  pupil  of  any 
philosophical  teacher,  at  least  not  for  any  great  length  of 
time. 

He  is  said  to  have  had  two  wives,  first  Melito,  and  sec- 
ond Choerile,  daughter  of  Mnesilochus,  both  of  whom  are 
said  to  have  been  unfaithful ;  but  the  stories  told  of  them 
were  probably  invented  to  explain  the  attacks  upon  women 
which  occur  in  his  tragedies.  He  had  three  sons :  Mne- 
sarchides,a  merchant;  Mnesilochus,  an  actor;  and  Euripides 
the  younger,  a  tragic  poet  who  produced  some  of  his  fa- 
ther's plays.  In  his  private  life  Euripides  was 
H13  private  qU|et  and  retiring.  He  was  not,  like  Sopho- 
cles, a  popular  man  in  society,  but  loved  the 
intimate  companionship  of  a  few  friends.  He  was  the  first 
Athenian  to  own  a  library,  and  spent  much  time  among  his 
books.  It  is  said  that  he  wrote  some  of  his  plays  in  a  cave 
at  Salamis  with  a  view  over  the  sea.  The  only  part  he 
ever  took  in  public  affairs  was  that  of  an  ambassador  to 
Syracuse.     He  held  the  office  of  fire-bearer  to  Apollo  at 


EURIPIDES  221 

Cape   Zoster,  but  we  do  not  know  how  important  that 
office  was. 

Late  in  life  he  went  to  Macedonia,  to  the  court  of  King 
Archelaus  at  Pella,  where  he  died  in  406  b.  c.  According  to 
one  story,  he  was  devoured  by  the  king's  dogs, 
and  according  to  another  tale,  he  was  torn  in 
pieces  by  women ;  but  neither  story  deserves  credence.  As 
he  was  seventy-nine  (or,  even  if  he  was  born  in  480,  sev- 
enty-four) years  old,  he  probably  died  of  illness  and  age. 
He  was  buried  with  great  honor  in  Macedonia,  and  a  ceno- 
taph was  erected  for  him  at  Athens,  with  the  inscription, 
"  The  monument  of  Euripides  is  all  Hellas,  but  the  land  of 
Macedon  holds  his  bones ;  for  there  he  met  with  the  end 
of  life.  His  native  place  was  Athens,  the  Hellas  of  Hellas. 
He  gave  greatest  delight  to  the  Muses,  and  so  receives  from 
many  men  the  meed  of  praise." 

Few  direct  innovations  are  attributed  to  Euripides.  He 
did  not  add  to  the  number  of  actors,  nor  did  he  invent  new 
stage  machinery,  nor,  so  far  as  we  know,  new  costumes. 
And  yet  he  was  an  original  genius,  and  gave  a  new  impulse 
to  Greek  tragedy,  causing  it  to  develop  in  a  new  way.  We 
Euripides  and  mus^  however,  remember  that  Euripides  is  not 
Sophocles  the  successor  but  the  contemporary  of  Sopho- 
contempora-  cles,  who  was  only  twelve  years  his  senior. 
The  first  appearance  of  Sophocles  as  a  tragic 
poet  was  in  468,  and  Euripides  competed  for  the  first  time 
in  455.  For  nearly  fifty  years  the  two  poets  contended 
side  by  side  for  the  favor  of  the  Athenian  public.  It  is 
therefore  not  always  certain  to  which  of  the  poets  some 
minor  innovation  may  be  due,  nor  even  that  it  is  due  to 
either  of  them,  since  little  is  known  of  the  many  other 
tragic  poets  of  the  time ;  but,  just  as  the  introduction  of 
the  third  actor  and  the  increase  in  the  number  of  the 
chorus  are  ascribed  to  Sophocles,  so  Euripides  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  inventor  of  a  new  kind  of  prologue  and  of 
the  so-called  deus  ex  machina  or  god  from  the  machine. 


222  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Neither  of  these  adds  to  the  artistic  beauty  of  the  play,  but 
both  have  their  uses. 

The  prologue  of  a  Greek  play  usually  consists  of  a  con- 
versation between  two  or  three  of  the  characters,  so  con- 
trived as  to  explain  to  the  audience  indirectly 
the  general  situation.  In  several  plays  of  Eurip- 
ides this  is  preceded  by  another  prologue,  to  which  the 
name  is  especially  applied  when  the  plays  of  Euripides  are  un- 
der discussion.  This  Euripidean  prologue  is  spoken  by  one 
person,  frequently  a  god  who  is  interested  in  the  plot,  and 
explains  the  situation  directly,  including  the  whole  myth 
so  far  as  it  does  not  appear  in  the  play.  This  is  an  easier 
and  simpler  way  of  making  the  audience  understand  the 
plot  than  the  other,  but  it  is  not  dramatic  nor  artistic. 
Euripides  employs  it  sometimes,  as  in  the  Helena,  when  he 
is  about  to  use  a  new  or  unfamiliar  form  of  a  well-known 
myth,  sometimes  when  the  myth  he  is  employing  as  the 
basis  of  his  plot  is  not  very  familiar,  but  sometimes  also 
when  the  myth  is  familiar  and  appears  in  its  usual  form. 
In  cases  of  the  first  and  second  sort,  such  a  prologue  is  al- 
most indispensable,  but  in  those  of  the  third  sort  it  seems 
to  be  used  simply  because  it  is  easier  than  the  more  dra- 
matic prologue  in  dialogue  form.  It  may  be  that  Euripides 
found  that  the  Athenian  audience  liked  his  prologues  in  the 
plays  in  which  they  were  necessary,  and  therefore  employed 
them  in  other  plays,  or  it  may  be  that  he  really  found  it 
easier  to  make  his  introductory  remarks  in  connected  form. 
The  deus  ex  macliina  appears  at  the  end  of  the  play 
to  explain  to  the  audience  what  is  to  happen  after  the 
moment  at  which  the  action  of  the  play  ends, 
e    eus  ex       gQ    ^    ^e     en(j    ^    ^e    Jp^g^a    among    the 

Taurians,  Athena  appears  and  decrees  the 
voyage  of  Iphigenia  and  Orestes  to  Attica  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  worship  of  the  Tauric  Artemis  at 
Brauron.  Sometimes  the  god  brings  to  a  conclusion  the 
action  of  a  play  which  is  apparently  hopelessly  confused. 


EURIPIDES  223 

So  in  the  Orestes  Apollo  commands  the  strife  to  cease  and 
makes  an  ending  of  the   play  possible.     Heracles  in  the 
Philoctetes  of  Sophocles  serves  the  same  purpose ;  and  the 
appearance  of  Heracles  to  finish  the  play  is  a  proof  of  the 
influence   exerted  by   Euripides   upon   his  elder  contem- 
porary.    As  a  rule,  however,  the  deus  ex  machina  is  not 
brought  in  merely  to  disentangle  an  otherwise  hopelessly 
confused  plot,  but  rather  to  foretell  the  future  and  serve 
as   an   epilogue,  like   the   last   chapter  in   many  modern 
novels.     It   can   not  be   said  that  this   forms  an  artistic 
dramatic   ending,   but  the   appearance  of    a  god  coming 
into  view  by  means  of  a  machine  which  made  him  seem  to 
be  floating  in  the  air  must  have  been  at  any  rate  striking, 
and  his   prophecies  concerning  the  later  fortunes  of  the 
characters  in  the  play,  carrying  with  them  all  the  weight 
of  his   divine   nature,  undoubtedly  gave   the   audience  a 
comfortable    feeling    of    assurance.     In    the    Medea    the 
machine,  in  the  shape  of  a  winged  chariot,  was  used  to 
withdraw  Medea   herself  from  the   attack   or  pursuit  of 
Jason,  but  this  use  of  the  machine  to  remove  one  of  the  per- 
sons of  the  play  by  miraculous  means  does  not  occur  else- 
where.    On  the   whole,   the   deus  ex  machina  makes  an 
unfavorable  impression,  seeming  to  be  invented  merely  to 
gather  together  the  loose  ends  of  the  plot  and  show  how 
the  fortunes  of  the  various  characters  are  to  be  arranged ; 
but  we  must  remember  that  the  effect  upon  the  spectators, 
who  saw  the  glorious  apparition  of  the  god  in  the  upper  air 
and  listened   to  his  impressively  uttered  words,  was  not 
the  same  as  the  effect  produced  by  the  printed  page  upon 
the  reader. 

The  prologue  and  the  deus  ex  machina  are  the  two  most 
tangible  innovations  of  Euripides,  and  neither  of  them  is 
an  improvement  upon  previous  methods.  But  in  other 
ways,  more  important  though  less  easily  defined,  Euripides 
shows  marked  originality.  The  dramas  of  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles  are  religious ;  the  actions  of  the  characters  are 


224  GREEK  LITERATURE 

determined  by  the  divine  will  or  by  fate  in  iEschylus  and 

by  moral  or  religious  motives  in  Sophocles.    The  characters 

of  Euripides  are  moved  to  action  by  human  passions.     His 

personages  are  still  heroic — that  is,  they  are  derived  from 

the  ancient  epics — but  they  are  no  longer  superhuman  in 

their  virtues  or  their  simplicity  of  character.     Euripides 

shows  in  his  plays  human  nature  as  he   has 

observed  it.  His  characters  are  Athenians  of 
nature. 

the  fifth  century  adorned  with  the  names  and 
surrounded  by  the  circumstances  of  mythical  heroes.  In 
this  matter  Euripides  continues  and  advances  far  in  a 
line  of  progress  already  begun  by  Sophocles  ;  for  Sophocles, 
as  distinguished  from  iEschylus,  makes  the  conduct  of  his 
personages  depend  upon  their  individual  characters,  which 
he  represents  vividly  and  clearly,  and  Euripides  goes  fur- 
ther in  representing  character  by  drawing  it,  as  it  were, 
from  life  and  bringing  before  his  audience  the  faults, 
virtues,  inconsistencies,  and  passions  which  he  has  observed 
about  him.  Herein  Euripides  is  more  modern  than 
iEschylus  or  Sophocles,  and  herein,  too,  he  is  the  precursor 
of  the  later  Greek  comedy.  In  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles, 
the  love  of  Hgemon  for  Antigone  leads  him  to  commit 
suicide,  but  this  is  a  mere  episode  in  the  play.  Euripides 
is  the  only  one  of  the  three  great  tragic  poets  who  made 
the  passion  of  love  the  basis  of  any  of  his  plots,  and  he 
made  it  under  different  forms  the  basis  of  the  Alcestis,  the 
Medea,  and  the  Hippolytus,  among  the  extant  plays,  and 
several  of  the  lost  plays  were  also  dramas  of  love.  This 
was  an  innovation  in  the  fifth  century  b.  c,  but  all  later 
ages  have  joined  in  approving  it.  Still  we  must  not  forget 
that  the  poet  who  introduces  all  human  passions  into  his 
plays,  while  he  may  succeed  in  interesting  his  audience 
more  than  the  poet  who  limits  his  choice  to  grander 
themes,  is  in  danger  of  ceasing  to  be  a  teacher  of  men  and 
becoming  a  mere  purveyor  of  amusement.  Euripides  intro- 
duced greater  realism,  more  accurate  delineation  of  charac- 


EURIPIDES  225 

ter,  far  greater  play  of  passion,  into  Greek  tragedy,  but  he 
lacked  the  deep  religious  element  and  the  mighty  grandeur 
of  iEschylus  and  Sophocles. 

Euripides  represented  human  nature  as  he  saw  it  in  real 
life,  and  he  loved  to  represent  it  under  different  forms. 
So,  for  instance,  he  does  not  spend  all  his  care  on  the  he- 
roes and  great  personages  of  his  dramas,  but  sometimes 
brings  before  us  the  qualities  of  a  lesser  character  in  some 
detail,  as,  for  example,  that  of  the  poor  farmer  to  whom 
Electra  is  supposed  to  be  married  in  the  Electra.  This 
farmer  is  a  man  of  real  nobility  of  character,  and  Euripides 
takes  pains  to  say,  through  the  mouth  of  Orestes,  that  real 
nobility  is  not  a  matter  of  birth.  In  the  same  play,  the  in- 
troduction of  the  farmer's  lowly  dwelling  as  the  scene  of 
action  is  a  picturesque  innovation.  Sophocles  liked  to  in- 
troduce long  and  elaborate  reports  of  messengers.  Eurip- 
ides also  introduced  such  reports,  but  catered  to  the  taste 
of  his  audience  by  introducing  more  frequently 
than  Sophocles  long  arguments  between  his 
characters — arguments  such  as  the  sophists  of 
the  time  taught  their  pupils  to  conduct,  or  such  as  the 
Athenian  dicast  loved  to  listen  to  in  the  courts  of  law.  So 
in  the  Trojan  Women  Hecuba  accuses  Helen,  and  Helen  de- 
fends herself,  each  in  a  long,  set  speech,  and  Menelaus  acts 
as  judge.  Such  arguments  are  out  of  place  in  tragedies, 
and  show  that  Euripides  was  strongly  influenced  by  the 
love  of  rhetorical  display  which  shows  itself  in  the  Athenian 
prose  writing  of  his  time. 

In  several  passages  Euripides  expresses  his  contempt 
of  demagogues,  which  shows  that  he  understood  the  great 
Politics,  phi-  danger  to  which  the  Athenian  state  was  ex- 
losophy,  and  posed,  and  some  of  his  plays  contain  evident 
religion.  allusions  to  the  foreign  relations  of  Athens  ; 

the  Suppliants,  for  instance,  with  its  expressions  of  friend- 
liness for  the  Argives  and  hostility  to  the  Thebans,  was 
composed  with  the  events  of  the  year  420  B.  c.  in  mind, 


226  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  the  Heraclidce  is  most  easily  explained  by  assuming 
that  its  tone  is  due  to  the  conditions  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Peloponnesian  War.  Other  plays  contain  less  marked 
references  to  contemporary  events.  The  philosophical  and 
religious  tenets  of  Euripides  are  hot  easy  to  distinguish, 
because  his  characters  are  well  drawn  and  utter  sentiments 
appropriate  to  their  circumstances.  Still,  the  idea  that 
human  life  has  more  of  sorrow  than  of  joy  is  so  often  re- 
peated in  different  forms  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  one  of 
his  articles  of  belief.  The  changeableness  of  human  life 
and  the  worthlessness  of  human  knowledge  are  also  dwelt 
upon.  The  treatment  of  the  gods  in  general  is  such  as  to 
make  it  clear  that  the  popular  mythology  met  with  little 
respect  or  belief  from  Euripides,  and  it  may  even  be  doubted 
whether  he  believed  that  the  gods  existed  at  all,  or,  at  any 
rate,  whether  they  cared  for  human  beings ;  but  the  expres- 
sions put  into  the  mouths  of  different  characters  in  the  plays 
are  so  contradictory  that  we  can  assert  positively  only  that 
Euripides  thought  seriously  on  religious  and  philosophical 
themes,  and  was  not  a  believer  in  oracles  and  divinations, 
nor  in  the  popular  legends  of  mythology. 

Euripides  has  been  called  a  woman-hater,  and  it  is  true 
that  his  plays  contain  many  harsh  sayings  about  women ; 
-  but  it  is  also  true  that  no  Greek  poet  has  rep- 
resented a  more  lovable  woman  than  the  Al- 
women. 

cestis  of  Euripides.  The  fact  is  that  women 
were  not  regarded  as  the  equals  of  men  by  the  Athenians 
of  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  They  were  supposed  to  stay  in  the 
house  most  of  the  time,  devoting  themselves  to  household 
duties  and  the  care  of  their  children  ;  and  the  restraint  to 
which  they  were  subjected  probably  prevented  them  from 
attaining  any  great  height  of  character.  Euripides,  who 
selected  love  stories  for  his  plots,  naturally  created  many 
female  characters,  and  gave  them  the  qualities  which  he 
believed  the  Athenian  women  of  his  time  would  have  ex- 
hibited under  the  circumstances  of  the  plot.     If  many  of 


EURIPIDES  227 

his  female  characters  are  bad,  it  is  because  such  characters 
were  demanded  by  the  plot,  and  if  his  plays  contain  harsh 
utterances  about  women,  it  is  because  the  women  in  the 
plays  are  bad.  When  the  plot  demands  a  good  woman, 
Euripides  is  able  to  portray  her,  as  in  the  Alcestis,  the 
Heraclidce,  and  the  two  plays  named  from  Iphigenia,  but 
most  of  the  plots  in  which  women  are  prominent  demand 
bad  women.  This  is  rather  because  Euripides  wished  to 
represent  violent  passions  than  because  he  wished  to  repre- 
sent bad  women  out  of  hatred  for  the  sex. 

Euripides  is  said  to  have  written  ninety-two  plays. 
There  now  exist  under  his  name  nineteen  plays  and  over 
one  thousand  fragments.  Of  the  plays, -one, 
*rks  ^e  Rhesus,  is  probably  not  by  Euripides ;  one, 

the  Cyclops,  is  a  satyr  drama,  not  a  tragedy ; 
and  one,  the  Alcestis,  though  a  tragedy,  was  performed  at 
the  end  of  a  tetralogy  in  place  of  a  satyr  drama,  and  has 
some  qualities  peculiar  to  itself.  The  exact  dates  of  some 
of  the  tragedies  are  known,  and  the  approximate  dates  of 
the  others  can  be  assigned  with  more  or  less  probability 
from  internal  evidence.  ,Wnen  the  exact  date  is  known,  it 
is  added  to  the  name  of  the  play  in  the  following  list,  and 
all  the  tragedies  are  arranged  in  their  probable  chrono- 
logical order  : 

1.  The  Alcestis  (438)  was  performed  instead  of  a  satyr 
drama,  after  three  tragedies.  Admetus,  king  of  Pherae, 
..     ..  had  been  condemned  by  fate  to  die  at  a  certain 

Alcestis.  J 

time,  but  Apollo  obtained  respite  for  him,  on 
condition  that  he  find  some  one  to  die  in  his  place.  His 
father  and  mother  refused,  but  his  wife,  Alcestis,  consented. 
On  the  day  of  her  death  Heracles  comes  to  Pherae  and  is 
hospitably  entertained  by  Admetus,  who,  in  his  chivalrous 
regard  for  the  duties  of  hospitality,  conceals  from  him  the 
death  of  Alcestis.  Heracles,  however,  finds  it  out,  goes  to 
her  tomb,  overcomes  Death  in  a  hand  to  hand  fight,  and 
brings  Alcestis  back  to  her  husband.     The  character  of 


228  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Alcestis  is  of  singular  beauty,  and  has  made  the  play  de- 
servedly popular.  Heracles  is  represented  as  a  curious  mix- 
ture of  hero  and  buffoon,  who  eats  much  and  drinks  until 
he  is  half  tipsy,  but  shows  also  heroic  courage  and  grateful 
appreciation  of  the  hospitality  of  Admetus.  A  long  argu- 
ment between  Admetus  and  his  father,  Pheres,  on  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  father  ought  to  die  for  the  son  shows  Eu- 
ripides's  liking  for  rhetoric,  but  does  not  appeal  to  modern 
taste. 

2.  The  Medea  (431).     Jason,  having  obtained  the  golden 
fleece  through  the  aid  of  Medea,  carries  her  off  with  him  to 

Greece  as  his  wife.     After  various  adventures 

TVTp  rips, 

they  come  in  the  tenth  year  to  Corinth.  There 
Jason  resolves  to  put  away  Medea  and  marry  Creiisa,  daugh- 
ter of  the  king  of  Corinth.  Medea,  by  means  of  a  poisoned 
robe,  kills  Creiisa,  and  also  her  father,  and  slays  her  own 
children  with  the  sword  in  order  to  pain  Jason.  Finally 
she  departs  in  a  winged  chariot  sent  by  her  grandfather, 
the  sun-god.  The  fierce  and  passionate  character  of  Medea, 
distracted  by  the  conflict  between  love  for  her  children  and 
thirst  for  vengeance  upon  Jason,  makes  this  one  of  the  most 
powerful  and  famous  of  Greek  plays. 

3.  The  Heraclidce,  or  Children  of  Heracles,  was  brought 
out  in  the  early  years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.     After  the< 

death  of  Heracles,  his  enemy  Eurystheus  still 
pursues  his  children.  Led  by  Iolaus,  they  come 
to  Marathon.  There  an  Argive  herald  tries  to  lead  them 
away,  but  the  Athenians  forbid.  Macaria,  daughter  of 
Heracles,  gives  herself  to  be  sacrificed  because  an  oracle 
demands  the  sacrifice  of  a  maiden  to  insure  the  victory  of 
the  Athenians  over  the  Argives,  who  come  with  an  army  to 
take  the  Heraclidae.  In  the  battle  which  takes  place  the 
Argives  are  defeated,  and  Eurystheus  is  taken  prisoner  by 
Iolaus,  who  is  miraculously  made  young  for  the  time.  Alc- 
mene,  the  mother  of  Heracles,  demands  the  death  of  Eurys- 
theus, who  is  finally  given  up  to  her.     The  play  is  interest- 


EURIPIDES  229 

ing  chiefly  on  account  of  allusions  to  contemporary  politics, 
though  Macaria  and  Iolaus  are  attractive  characters. 

4.  The  Hippolytus  (428).     This  play,  the  Crowned  Hip- 
polytus, is  a  revised  edition  of  an  unsuccessful  play  called 

the  Veiled  Hippolytus,  which  has  been  lost. 
ippo  y  us.  phggdj.^  w}fe  0f  Theseus,  falls  in  love  with  her 
stepson  Hippolytus,  who  rejects  her  offers  with  horror. 
She  then  kills  herself,  leaving  a  letter  in  which  she  accuses 
Hippolytus  of  having  made  advances  to  her.  Theseus 
prays  for  his  son's  death,  and  Poseidon  sends  a  monster 
from  the  sea  which  causes  the  horses  of  Hippolytus  to  take 
fright  and  kill  him ;  but  before  he  dies  he  and  Theseus  are 
reconciled  by  Artemis.  The  most  interesting  characters 
are  the  passionate,  love-sick  Phaedra  and  her  intriguing 
old  nurse.  The  play  is  also  interesting  on  account  of  re- 
marks about  the  gods,  which  throw  some  light  upon  the 
religious  attitude  of  Euripides  and  his  audience. 

5.  The  Hecuba  (probably  about  425).     The  first  part  of 
the  play  tells  of  the  sacrifice  of  Polyxena  at  the  tomb  of 

Achilles,  and  the  second  of  the  murder  of 
Polydorus,  son  of  Priam,  by  the  Thracian 
Polymestor,  who  is  punished  by  Hecuba  and  the  other 
Trojan  women  by  having  his  children  killed  and  his  own 
'eyes  put  out.  The  play  contains  fine  passages,  but  lacks 
unity,  for  the  two  parts  do  not  really  belong  together. 
Moreover,  Hecuba  displays  more  love  for  rhetorical  argu- 
ment and  philosophical  speculation  than  is  appropriate  for 
a  Trojan  queen  of  heroic  times. 

6.  The  Suppliants  (abou^  420).     The  Thebans  had  for- 
bidden the  burial  of  Polynices  and  his  Argive  allies,  but 

the  mothers  of  the  dead  chieftains  came  to 
Eleusis  and  asked  for  aid.  The  Athenians 
under  Theseus  defeat  the  Thebans  in  a  battle  under  the 
walls  of  Thebes  and  force  them  to  give  up  the  bodies, 
which  are  then  burned.  Evadne,  wife  of  Capaneus,  burns 
herself  upon  the  funeral  pyre  of  her  husband.     The  plot  is 


230  GREEK  LITERATURE 

slight,  and  the  interest  of  the  audience  was  kept  alive  by 
spectacular  scenes,  as  the  death  of  Evadne  and  the  funeral 
of  the  chiefs.  There  are  frequent  appeals  to  Athenian 
patriotism  and  references  to  current  politics. 

7.  The  Andromache  (a  little  later,  apparently,  than  the 
Suppliants).     Andromache,  Hector's  widow,  was  given  to 

Neoptolemus  at  the  sack  of  Troy.  He  took  her 
home  to  Phthia,  but  wedded  as  his  lawful  wife 
Hermione,  daughter  of  Menelaus.  -In  the  absence  of  Neop- 
tolemus,  Hermione  and  Menelaus  wish  to  kill  Andromache 
and  her  son  Molossus,  but  are  prevented  by  the  aged  Peleus. 
Menelaus  withdraws,  and  Hermione  goes  away  with  Orestes, 
who  causes  Xeoptolemus  to  be  murdered  at  Delphi.  At  the 
end  of  the  play  Thetis  appears  and  declares  that  Andro- 
mache is  to  go  to  the  Molossian  country  and  marry  Helenus, 
and  that  Peleus  is  to  be  made  a  god  to  dwell  with  her  in  the 
watery  halls  of  Xereus.  The  plot  lacks  unity,  and,  although 
in  the  beginning  the  peril  of  Andromache  and  Molossus 
arouses  sympathy,  the  play  is  as  a  whole  uninteresting. 

8.  The  Madness  of  Heracles,  or  Hercules  Furens,  is  ap- 
parently a  little  later  than  the  Andromache.     Lycus,  tyrant 

of  Thebes,  takes  advantage  of  the  absence  of 

Ma  ness  o  Heracles  on  the  last  of  his  twelve  labors  to 
Heracles. 

order  the   death   of  his   wife    and    children. 

They  are  on  the  point  of  being  dragged  from  the  altar  and 
slain  when  Heracles  appears,  saves  them,  and  punishes 
Lycus.  While  all  are  rejoicing,  Heracles  is  stricken  with 
madness  by  Hera  and  kills  his  wife  and  children.  When 
he  returns  to  his  senses  he  is  overwhelmed  with  horror  and 
wishes  to  kill  himself,  but  Theseus  appears,  offers  him  a 
safe  asylum  at  Athens,  and  persuades  him  to  bear  his  ter- 
rible lot  with  fortitude.  Heracles  is  throughout  the  centre 
of  interest,  and  if  at  first  sight  the  saving  of  Megara  and 
her  children  from  Lycus  seems  to  have  little  connection 
with  their  death  at  the  hands  of  Heracles,  the  lack  of 
unity  is  only  apparant,  for  the  relief  and  joy  caused  by  the 


EURIPIDES  231 

appearance  of  Heracles  make  the  peripeteia,  the  change 
to  a  feeling  of  horror  in  the  second  part  of  the  play,  all  the 
more  striking.  This  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  strongest 
plays  of  Euripides. 

9.  The  Trojan  Women,  or  Troades  (415),  consists  of  a 
series  of  loosely  connected  scenes  depicting  the  lot  of  the 

women  captured  at  Troy.     There  is  much  in- 
™jan  appropriate  rhetoric,  and,  although  the  pro- 

phetic ravings  of  Cassandra  have  a  certain  ex- 
travagant beauty,  the  play  as  a  whole  lacks  interest. 

10.  The  Electra  (probably  413)  treats  of  the  same  sub- 
ject as  the   Clioephori  of  ^Eschylus  and  the   Electra  of 

Sophocles.  It  contains  some  criticisms  of  the 
play  of  iEschylus,  but  none  of  that  of  Sopho- 
cles, which  makes  it  probable  that  Sophocles  produced  his 
Electra  at  a  later  date.  Euripides  supposes  that  Electra 
has  been  given  in  marriage  by  Clytaemnestra  to  a  poor 
farmer  in  order  that  her  children  may  have  no  power,  and 
the  scene  is  at  the  farmer's  cottage.  After  a  plot  has  been 
formed  by  Electra,  Orestes,  and  Pylades,  iEgisthus  is  killed 
while  engaged  in  a  sacrifice  at  some  distance  from  the  city, 
and  Clytaemnestra,  having  been  summoned  by  Electra  to 
purify  her  dwelling  after  an  alleged  childbirth,  is  killed  in 
the  house.  At  the  end  of  the  play  Castor  and  Polydeuces 
appear,  command  Orestes  to  flee  to  Athens,  and  foretell  the 
future  of  the  chief  personages  of  the  play.  The  character 
of  Electra  is  of  unrelieved  ferocity ;  in  fact,  no  one,  except 
the  farmer,  appears  to  advantage  ;  yet  the  play  contains 
fine  passages  and  is  admirably  planned  for  dramatic  effect. 

11.  The  Helena  (412).     This  is  a  fantastic  extravaganza 
rather  than  a  tragedy.     The  real  Helen  never  went  to  Troy, 

but  was  instead  carried  by  the  gods  to  Egypt, 

while  a  phantom  shape  went   with   Paris  to 

Troy.     After  the  end  of  the  Trojan  War,  Menelaus,  with  the 

phantom  Helen,  is  borne  by  the  winds  to  Egypt.     Here  he 

finds  the  real  Helen,  and  the  phantom  disappears, 

16 


1 


232  GREEK  LITERATURE 

12.  The  Ion,  of  uncertain  date,  shows  how  Ion,  the  son 
of  the  god  Apollo  and  the  Athenian  princess  Creiisa,  after 

being  brought  up  in  the  temple  of  Apollo  at 
Delphi,  is  given  as  a  son  to  his  mother  and  her 
husband  Xuthus.  Creiisa,  believing  that  Ion  is  really  the 
son  of  Xuthus,  tries  to  kill  him  by  poison,  but  is  detected, 
and  is  in  turn  threatened  with  death.  Finally  the  Pythian 
priestess  shows  the  swaddling-clothes  in  which  Creiisa  had 
wrapped  her  child  at  his  birth,  mother  and  son  recognize 
their  relationship  and  are  reconciled,  and  the  glory  of  Ion's 
descendants  is  foretold.  Xuthus,  however,  is  not  unde- 
ceived, but  still  believes  that  Ion  is  really  his  son.  The 
play  is  interesting  and  contains  many  beautiful  passages, 
but  it  is  overloaded  with  mythological  lore.  Creiisa  and 
Ion  are  unnaturally  ferocious,  and  Xuthus  is  a  somewhat 
dull  and  simple  dupe  of  Apollo,  Creiisa,  and  their  son. 

13.  The  Iphigenia  among  the  Taurians  was  performed 
probably  not  far  from  412  B.  c.  Iphigenia  had  been  given 
Iphigenia  UP  ^y  ner  father,  Agamemnon,  to  be  sacrificed 
among  the  at  Aulis,  and  all  men  thought  her  dead.  But 
Taurians.  Artemis  had  removed  her  to  the  Taurian  land 
and  made  her  priestess  of  her  temple,  where  she  was  obliged 
to  sacrifice  all  foreigners  who  arrived.  Orestes,  pursued  by 
the  Furies  after  the  murder  of  his  mother,  comes  to  the 
Taurian  land  because  Apollo  has  commanded  him  to  carry 
away  the  statue  of  Artemis  from  the  temple.  Here  he  and 
his  friend  Pylades  are  to  be  sacrificed,  but  Iphigenia,  wish- 
ing to  send  a  letter  to  Orestes,  agrees  to  let  one  of  them  go 
as  her  messenger.  Each  wishes  the  life  of  the  other  to  be 
saved,  but  finally  the  letter,  addressed  to  Orestes,  is  given  to 
Pylades  to  take  to  Greece.  He  delivers  it  at  once  to  Orestes, 
which  brings  about  the  recognition  of  the  brother  and  sister. 
They  then  plan  the  theft  of  the  statue,  and  carry  it  out 
successfully,  but  a  wind  bears  their  ship  back  to  land. 
King  Thoas  is  about  to  seize  them  when  Athena  appears, 
tells  him  to  let  them  go,  and  ordains  the  establishment  of 


EURIPIDES  233 

the  worship  of  Artemis  at  Brauron  in  Attica.  The  plot  is 
original,  attractive,  and  carefully  carried  out.  The  self- 
sacrificing  friendship  of  Orestes  and  Pylades  lends  a  pecul- 
iar charm  to  their  characters,  and  several  passages  are  of 
unusual  beauty  and  vigor.  This  play  is  perhaps  more  popu- 
lar with  modern  readers  than  any  other. 

14.  The  Orestes  (408).     The  scene  is  at  Argos,  after  the 
death  of  Clytgemnestra  and  iEgisthus.    Orestes  is  tormented 

with  madness.  The  Argive  assembly  votes  that 
he  and  Electra  be  put  to  death,  but  the  sen- 
tence is  so  changed  that  they  are  permitted  to  put  an  end 
to  their  own  lives  by  the  close  of  that  day.  Menelaus 
arrives,  but  after  long  argument  with  Orestes,  refuses  to 
take  any  active  measures  in  his  favor,  and  Tyndareiis,  the 
father  of  Helen  and  Clytaemnestraj  urges  the  punishment 
of  Orestes  and  Electra.  Orestes  and  Pylades  seize  Helen 
and  attempt  to  kill  her,  but  she  is  snatched  up  to  dwell 
with  the  gods.  They  then  seize  Hermione,  daughter  of 
Menelaus,  and  threaten  to  kill  her.  When  things  are  in 
this  state  of  confusion,  Apollo  appears,  ordains  that  Ores- 
tes shall  marry  Hermione,  whom  he  was  on  the  point  of 
murdering  in  cold  blood,  that  Pylades  shall  marry  Electra, 
and  that  Menelaus  shall  keep  Helen's  dowry  as  a  consola- 
tion for  the  loss  of  her  person.  The  first  part  of  this  play, 
especially  the  representation  of  the  madness  of  Orestes,  is 
powerful  and  impressive,  but  the  latter  part  is  weak,  dis- 
connected, and  artificial.  Nevertheless,  there  are  several 
scenes  which  must  have  been  of  great  interest  to  an  au- 
dience. 

15.  The  Phoenician  Women,  performed  probably  in  407  B.C., 
derives  its  name  from  the  chorus  of  Phoenician  captives  who 

are  by  mere  chance  at  Thebes  when  Polynices 
cian  Women     an(^  allies  attack  the  city.     The  play  con- 

tains several  criticisms  of  the  Seven  against 
Thebes,  which  treats  of  the  same  myth.  Euripides  repre- 
sents Eteocles  as  a  hard  and  selfish  tyrant.     Jocasta  induces 


234        p  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Polynices  to  enter  the  city  under  safe-conduct  and  tries  to 
effect  a  reconciliation,  but  in  vain.  Finally  she  goes  to  the 
scene  of  battle  aud  kills  herself  over  the  bodies  of  her  sons. 
The  episode  of  Menoeceus,  son  of  Creon,  who  kills  himself 
to  insure  the  victory  of  the  Thebans,'is  interesting  in  itself, 
but  has  little  connection  with  the  main  action  of  the  play. 
The  blind  (Edipus  appears  at  the  end  of  the  play  only  to 
be  banished  by  Creon. 

16.  The  Bacchce,  performed  for  the  first  time  after  the 
death   of   the   poet,  was   probably  written   in  Macedonia. 

King  Pentheus  violently  opposes  the  worship 
of  Dionysus,  but  the  god  comes  in  the  form  of 
a  gentle  youth  to  introduce  it.  He  is  captured  by  Pen- 
theus's  men,  but  persuades  the  king  to  put  on  female 
attire  and  go  to  watch  the  revels  of  the  Bacchas,  his  female 
worshipers.  Pentheus  is  torn  in  pieces  by  the  frenzied 
revelers,  and  his  mother,  Agave,  bears  his  head  in  triumph 
on  the  end  of  her  thyrsus,  believing  it  to  be  a  lion's  head. 
The  play  is  full  of  strange  beauty.  The  wild  songs  of  the 
chorus  of  bacchic  revelers,  the  insults  heaped  by  Pen- 
theus upon  the  god,  and  the  terrible  punishment  inflicted 
by  the  divine  power,  combine  to  make  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  powerful  of  Greek  tragedies. 

17.  The  Iphigenia  at  Aulis,  performed  in  405  B.  c,  after 
the  poet's  death,  and  probably  the  latest  of  his  plays,  appears 

to  have  been  left  unfinished,  and  shows  various 
AuH? 6nia  ^  cnan2es  and  insertions.  When  Calchas  fore- 
told that  Iphigenia  must  be  sacrificed  in  order 
that  the  Greek  fleet  might  sail  from  Aulis  for  Troy,  Aga- 
memnon sent  for  Clytaemnestra  to  bring  the  maiden,  pretend- 
ing that  she  was  to  marry  Achilles.  He  changes  his  mind, 
however,  and  sends  a  second  letter  to  prevent  the  coming 
of  his  wife  and  daughter,  but  this  is  intercepted  by  Mene- 
laus.  Clytaemnestra  and  Iphigenia  arrive,  and  in  spite  of 
the  opposition  of  Achilles,  the  sacrifice  of  the  maiden  is 
decreed.     At  the  last  she   offers  herself  heroically  to  be 


EURIPIDES  235 

slain  for  her  country.  The  character  of  Iphigenia  is  one 
of  great  nobility  and  charm,  and  Achilles  appears  as  a  noble, 
high-minded,  and  chivalrous  youth.  The  characters  of 
Agamemnon  and  Menelaus  are  well  drawn.  In  spite  of 
some  unevenness,  due  in  part  at  least  to  the  unfinished  con- 
dition in  which  it  was  left  by  its  author,  this  play  is  of 
unusual  interest  and  beauty. 

18.  The  Cyclops  is  the  only  extant  example  of  a  satyr 
drama.     Its  date   is  unknown,  but  the  perfection  of  its 

style  and  language  shows  that  it  can  hardly 
The  Cyclops.      ^    &  ^^    rf    ^    ^^    y(mthe      The    gatyr 

drama  arose,  like  tragedy,  from  the  dithyramb,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  been  separated  from  tragedy  in  order  to  pre- 
serve the  old  chorus  of  satyrs,  though  as  time  went  on 
even  the  satyr  drama  allowed  the  substitution  of  other  per- 
sons for  the  satyrs,  and  sometimes  a  fourth  tragedy  con- 
taining some  elements  of  burlesque  (e.  g.,  the  Alcestis)  took 
the  place  of  the  satyr  drama  at  the  end  of  a  tetralogy. 
The  details  of  the  development  of  the  satyr  drama  are  not 
well  known  and  need  not  detain  us.  This  kind  of  play 
derived  its  plots,  like  tragedy,  from  the  ancient  myths,  but 
employed  only  those  which  permitted  more  or  less  comic 
treatment.  The  heroic  personages  were  treated  with  dig- 
nity, but  the  satyr  chorus  lent  the  play  an  element  of  ab- 
surdity and  fun.  The  satyr  drama  stood  therefore  between 
tragedy  and  comedy.  The  plot  of  the  Cyclops  is  derived 
from  the  Odyssey  (Book  IX),  but  fat  old  Silenus  and  his 
attendant  satyrs,  supposed  to  have  been  shipwrecked  and 
then  captured  by  Polyphemus,  are  added  to  the  Homeric 
personages.  Odysseus  is  represented,  as  in  the  Odyssey,  as 
a  brave  and  resourceful  hero,  pious  toward  the  gods  and 
faithful  to  his  comrades.  Polyphemus  is  coarse  and  brutal, 
Silenus  drunken  and  unprincipled,  the  satyrs  wild,  licen- 
tious, and  cowardly — untrammeled  creatures  of  the  woods. 
A  sylvan  freshness  and  grace  breathes  through  the  play, 
the  tone  varying  from  drunken  license  to  serious  and  pious 


236  GREEK  LITERATURE 

appeals,  and  from  treachery  and  cruelty  to  poetic  descrip- 
tion, always  with  the  utmost  lightness  and  rapidity.  Modern 
literature  offers  no  parallel  to  this  single  extant  example  of 
an  otherwise  lost  branch  of  poetry. 

Besides  the  plays  preserved  entire,  many  others  are 
known  by  title  and  by  fragments,  and  the  plots  of  some  of 
these  can  be  discerned.  They  add  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
myths  chosen  by  Euripides  and  of  his  method  of  treat- 
ment, and  what  they  add  confirms  what  is  evident  from  the 
extant  plays.  The  language  of  Euripides  approaches  more 
nearly  the  language  of  daily  life  than  does  that  of  Soph- 
ocles, but  it  still  preserves  something  of  tragic  dignity. 
The  style  has  a  subtle  charm  which  can  not  be  reproduced 
Representa-  *n  translation.  In  representation  of  human 
tion  of  character,  especially  of  passion,  Euripides  ex- 

character.  ce]s  au  0ther  ancient  writers.  Medea,  about 
to  kill  her  children  before  she  is  forced  to  leave  Corinth,  is 
a  perfect  example  of  a  soul  torn  by  conflicting  passions : * 

Woe !  woe !  why  gaze  your  eyes  on  me,  my  darlings  ? 

Why  smile  to  me  the  latest  smile  of  all  ? 

Alas!  what  shall  I  do?     Mine  heart  is  failing 

As  I  behold  my  children's  laughing  eyes ! 

Women  [to  the  chorus],  I  can  not !  farewell,  purposes 

O'erpast !  I  take  my  children  from  the  land. 

What  need  to  wring  the  father's  heart  with  ills 

Of  these,  to  gain  myself  ills  twice  so  many? 

Not  I !  not  I !     Ye  purposes,  farewell ! 

Yet — yet — what  ails  me  ?     Would  I  earn  derision, 

Letting  my  foes  slip  from  my  hands  unpunished  ? 

I  must  dare  this.     Out  on  my  coward  mood 

That  from  mine  heart  let  loose  relenting  words ! 

Euripides  employed  monodies  or  solo  songs  more  freely 
than  his  predecessors,  and  the  accompanying  music  was 
more  artificial  than  had  been  customary  before.     In  his 

1  Medea,  1040  ff . ;  Way's  translation. 


EURIPIDES  237 

music  he  is  said  to  have  been  aided  by  a  certain  Cephiso- 
phon,  who  lived  in  his  house  and  was  accused  of  improper 
intimacy  with  his  wife.  Of  the  truth  of  these  stories  we 
can  not  judge,  and  the  music  is  lost  to  us.  Yet,  even  with- 
out the  music,  some  of  the  extant  monodies  are  among  the 
most  effective  and  beautiful  lyric  poems  of  the 
world.  One  of  the  most  striking,  which  was, 
we  may  well  imagine,  accompanied  with  brilliant  music,  is 
sung  by  Cassandra  in  the  Troades,  when  she  is  about  to  be 
given  over  to  Agamemnon  : * 

Up  with  the  torch!— give  it  me — let  me  render 

Worship  to  Phoebus !     Lo,  lo,  how  I  fling 
Wide  through  his  temple  the  flash  of  its  splendour — 

Hymen !  O  Marriage-god,  Hymen  my  king ! 
Happy  the  bridegroom  who  waiteth  to  meet  me ; 
Happy  am  I  for  the  couch  that  shall  greet  me ; 

Royal  espousals  to  Argos  I  bring : 

Bridal-king,  Hymen,  thy  glory  I  sing. 
Mother,  thou  lingerest  long  at  thy  weeping, 

Aye  makest  moan  for  my  sire  who  hath  died, 
Mourn'st  our  dear  country  with  sorrow  unsleeping: 

Therefore  myself  for  mine  own  marriage-tide 
Kindle  the  firebrands,  a  glory  outstreaming, 
Toss  up  the  torches,  a  radiance  far-gleaming : — 
Hymen,  to  thee  is  their  brightness  upleaping ; 

Hekate,  flash  thou  thy  star-glitter  wide, 

After  thy  wont  when  a  maid  is  a  bride. 

The   choral   songs,  too,  though  not  the  parts  of  his 
dramas  to  which  Euripides  especially  owes  his  fame,  and 
though  they  are  less  in  extent  and  less  closely 
connected  with  the  plot  than  those  of  Sopho- 
cles, are  sometimes  of  great  beauty  and  originality.     As  an 
example  we  may  take  one  from  the  Bacchm : 2 


1  Troades,  308  fif. ;  Way's  translation. 

2  Bacchce,  862  fl\ ;  Milman's  translation. 


238  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Oh,  when,  through  the  long  night, 

With  fleet  foot  glancing  white, 
Shall  I  go  dancing  in  my  revelry, 

My  neck  cast  back  and  bare 

Unto  the  dewy  air, 
Like  sportive  fawn  in  the  green  meadow's  glee  ? 

Lo,  in  her  fear  she  springs 

Over  th'  encircling  rings, 
Over  the  well-woven  nets  far  off  and  fast ; 

While  swift  along  her  track 

The  huntsman  cheers  his  pack, 
With  panting  toil,  and  fiery  storm-wind  haste. 
Where  down  the  river-bank  spreads  the  white  meadow, 

Rejoices  she  in  the  untrod  solitude, 
Couches  at  length  beneath  the  silent  shadow 

Of  the  old  hospitable  wood. 

What  is  wisest  ?  what  is  fairest, 
Of  god's  boons  to  men  the  rarest  ? 
With  the  conscious  conquering  hand 
Above  the  foeman's  head  to  stand. 
What  is  fairest  still  is  dearest. 


Slow  come,  but  come  at  length, 

In  their  majestic  strength, 
Faithful  and  true,  the  avenging  deities: 

And  chastening  human  folly, 

And  the  mad  pride  unholy, 
Of  those  who  to  the  gods  bow  not  their  knees. 

For  hidden  still  and  mute, 

As  glides  their  printless  foot, 
The  impious  on  their  winding  path  they  hound. 

For  it  is  ill  to  know, 

And  it  is  ill  to  do, 
Beyond  the  law's  inexorable  bound. 
'Tis  but  light  cost  in  his  own  power  sublime 

To  array  the  godhead,  whosoe'er  he  be ; 
And  law  is  old,  even  as  the  oldest  time, 

Nature's  own  unrepealed  decree. 


EURIPIDES  239 

What  is  wisest  ?  what  is  fairest, 
Of  god's  boons  to  men  the  rarest  ? 
With  the  conscious  conquering  hand 
Above  the  foeman's  head  to  stand. 
What  is  fairest  still  is  dearest. 

Who  hath  'scaped  the  turbulent  sea, 
And  reached  the  haven,  happy  he  ! 
Happy  he  whose  toils  are  o'er, 
In  the  race  of  wealth  and  power! 
This  one  here,  and  that  one  there, 
Passes  by,  and  everywhere 
Still  expectant  thousands  over 
Thousand  hopes  are  seen  to  hover. 
Some  to  mortals  end  in  bliss ; 

Some  have  already  fled  away : 
Happiness  alone  is  his 
Who  happy  is  to-day. 

During  his  long  career  Euripides  won  only  five  victories 
in  tragic  contests,  and  one  of  these  was  won  after  his  death 
by  posthumous  plays  brought  out  by  his  son.  His  plays 
were,  however,  popular  even  during  his  lifetime,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  criticism  directed  against  them  by  the  comic 
poet  Aristophanes,  and  after  his  death  they  attained  the 
Popularity  utmost  popularity,  though  some  critical  writ- 
and  relative  ers  considered  them  inferior  to  those  of  Soph- 
excellence,  ocles.  The  large  number  of  fragments  pre- 
served in  the  works  of  other  writers  is  due  in  great  meas- 
ure to  this  popularity,  but  also  in  part  to  the  fact  that 
Euripides  puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  characters  many 
epigrammatical  sentences  and  much  speculation  on  moral 
and  philosophical  subjects.  He  was  therefore  often  quoted 
by  philosophical  and  ethical  writers.  In  modern  times  his 
works  have  been  alternately  excessively  admired  and  de- 
cried. The  plays  of  iEschylus  and  Sophocles  which  have 
come  down  to  us  appear  to  have  been  selected  in  later  times 
as  masterpieces,  while  those  of  Euripides  seem  to  have  been 


240  GREEK  LITERATURE 

preserved,  in  part  at  least,  by  mere  chance.  Comparison  be- 
tween the  three  great  tragedians  on  the  basis  of  their  extant 
works  is  therefore  unjust  to  Euripides.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
evident  that  Euripides  has  less  grandeur,  less  religious  in- 
spiration, and  less  spontaneous  lyric  genius  than  either 
iEschylus  or  Sophocles.  Yet,  though  he  should  perhaps 
be  ranked  as  a  poet  third  among  the  three  great  tragedians, 
he  surpasses  his  competitors  in  truth  to  nature,  in  portrayal 
of  human  passions,  and  in  variety  of  plots.  In  many  pas- 
sages, moreover,  he  rises  to  such  beauty  and  brilliancy  of 
expression  as  few  poets  of  any  epoch  have  attained. 


CHAPTER  XX 

MINOR   TRAGIC   POETS 

Minor  tragic  poets  of  the  fifth  century — Ion  of  Chios,  about  490 
to  about  422  b.  c. — Achaeus,  484  to  about  410  b.  c. — Agathon,  about  445 
to  about  400  b.  c. — Tragedy  in  families — Polyphradmon,  467  b.  c. — 
Aristias,  son  of  Pratinas,  about  460  b.  c— Euphorion  and  Bion,  sons  of 
iEschylus  — Philocles,  nephew  of  iEschylus — Morsinius,  Astydamas  the 
elder,  Astydamas  the  younger — Iophon  and  Ariston,  sons  of  Sophocles 
— The  younger  Sophocles — Carcinus  the  elder,  Xenocles  the  elder,  Car- 
cinus  the  younger,  Xenocles  the  younger — Critias,  about  415  b.  c. — 
Meletus,  about  410  b.  c. — Aristarchus  of  Tegea,  about  430  b.  c.  — Neo- 
phron, about  440  b.  c. — Sthenelus,  about  440  b.  c. — Tragedy  in  the 
fourth  century — Theodectes,  about  375  to  334  b.  c. — Chasremon,  about 
350  b.  c. — Heraclides  of  Pontus,  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century — Dio- 
nysius  of  Syracuse,  tyrant  405  to  367  b.  c. — Later  tragedy. 

^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  though  by  far 
the  greatest  of  the  tragic  poets  of  the  fifth  century,  were 
not.  without  imitators,  followers,  and  even  rivals.  Of  the 
works  of  the  lesser  tragedians  only  inconsiderable  frag- 
ments remain,  but  the  works  themselves  must  have  pos- 
sessed, in  some  cases  at  least,  real  merit  of  a  high  order, 
for  we  know  that  they  were  sometimes  victorious  over  those 
of  the  three  great  tragic  poets. 

Ion  of  Chios,  son  of  Orthomenes,  came  to  Athens  as  a 

young  man  and  lived  there  most  of  his  life,  returning  only 

,«,_•        occasionally  to  Chios.     The  first  of  his  forty 

Ion  of  Chios.  ,.        J  ,  .     ,M  __  _  .     .  • 

tragedies  appeared  in  451  b.  c.    He  was  defeated 

by  Euripides  in  428,  but  on  another  occasion  won  the  prize 

for  dithyrambic  poetry  as  well  as  tragedy.     His  death  took 

place  probably  a  little   before  421.     He  wrote  tragedies, 

241 


242  GREEK  LITERATURE 

comedies,  dithyrambs,  elegies,  paeans,  hymns,  epigrams,  and 
scolia,  besides  treatises  on  historical  and  scientific  subjects 
and  a  collection  of  Memoirs  or  Travels.  He  was  an  agree- 
able, good-tempered  man,  a  friend  of  Cimon,  iEschylus,  and 
perhaps  Sophocles,  and  somewhat  fond  of  wine  and  pleas- 
ure. His  writings  seem  to  have  been  refined  and  pleasing. 
This  can  be  asserted  with  confidence  of  his  lyric  poems,  of 
which  some  considerable  fragments  remain,  and  may  be 
assumed  for  his  tragedies,  the  fragments  of  which  are  too 
slight  to  be  of  much  value. 

Achaeus  of  Eretria,  the  son  of  Pythodorus  or  Pythodo- 
rides,  was  born  in  484  b.  c.  and  produced  his  first  plays  in 
447.  He  gained  only  one  victory,  though  he  is 
said  to  have  written  forty-four  tragedies.  He 
seems  to  have  excelled  in  satyr  dramas,  in  which  he  was 
said  by  some  critics  to  be  second  only  to  iEschylus.  His 
diction  was  graceful,  but  somewhat  obscure. 

Agathon,  the  son  of  Tisamenus  of  Athens,  was  born  not 
much  after  450  b.  c.  In  416  he  won  his  first  victory,  and  the 
banquet  in  honor  of  his  success  is  famous  as 
ga  on"  the  scene  of  Plato's  Symposium.  At  some 
time  before  406  he  went  to  Macedonia,  and  remained  until 
his  death  at  the  court  of  Archelaus.  He  was  remarkable 
for  personal  beauty  and  natural  ability,  but  was  rather 
effeminate  and  foppish.  As  a  dramatic  writer  he  showed 
some  originality  and  introduced  some  novelties,  being  the 
first  to  compose  choral  odes  having  no  connection  with  the 
plot,  so  that  they  could  be  inserted  indifferently  in  any 
tragedy.  He  was  also  the  first  to  write  a  tragedy  (called 
Anthos,  the  Flower)  with  a  purely  fictitious  plot,  not 
founded  upon  mythology  or  history.  His  example  seems 
to  have  been  followed  by  other  writers  in  respect  to  the 
choral  odes,  but  in  no  other  way  does  he  seem  to  have 
exerted  a  lasting  influence.  His  style  was  careful  but 
artificial,  and  his  verses  abounded  in  neat  epigram matical 
sayings,  alliterations,  and  plays  on  words. 


MINOR  TRAGIC  POETS  243 

The  tragic  poet  was  his  own  stage-manager,  invented 
his  own  scenery,  and  directed  the  training  of  his  chorus. 
Tragedy  he-  He  needed,  therefore,  not  only  the  ability  to 
reditary  in  write  tragedies  but  also  some  technical  knowl- 
families.  e(jge  anc[  special  training.     It  is  therefore  not 

unnatural  that  the  practise  of  producing  tragedies  was  to 
some  extent  hereditary  in  certain  families.  The  tragic 
poet  Phrynichus  had  a  son,  Polyphradmon,  whose  tetralogy 
on  the  myth  of  Lycurgus  was  produced  in  467 ;  and  Aris- 
tias,  son  of  Pratinas,  was,  like  his  father,  famous  for  his 
satyr  dramas. 

Euphorion  and  Bion,  sons  of  iEschylus,  both  wrote 
tragedies,  and  Euphorion  won  several  victories  by  exhibit- 
ing his  father's  plays.  A  nephew  of  iEschylus, 
m  6  hTV  °  Phil°cles5  produced  one  hundred  tragedies,  and 
even  defeated  Sophocles  when  the  latter  exhib- 
ited his  (Edipus  the  King.  His  plays  seem,  however,  to 
have  been  as  a  rule  of  no  great  merit.  His  son  Morsimus 
was  also  a  tragic  poet  of  little  importance.  Astydamas,  the 
son  of  Morsimus,  began  to  produce  tragedies  in  398,  and 
his  son,  the  younger  Astydamas,  was  the  most  successful 
tragic  writer  of  the  fourth  century.  He  won  his  first  vic- 
tory in  372,  and  produced  in  all  two  hundred  and  forty 
plays,,  winning  the  first  prize  in  fifteen  contests. 

Iophon,  the  son  of  Sophocles,  was  a  tragic  poet  of  some 

distinction.     He  produced  fifty  plays,  some  of  them  in  col- 

_,  ,  ...  laboration  with  his  father,  and  won  several  vic- 
The  families  .  ,  ' 

of  Sophocles  tories.  Ariston,  another  son  of  Sophocles,  also 
and  wrote  tragedies,   but  without   much   success. 

Euripides.  jjis  son,  the  younger  Sophocles,  exhibited  his 
grandfather's  (Edipus  at  Colonus,  and  in  396  began  to  pro- 
duce plays  of  his  own.  He  is  said  to  have  won  seven  vic- 
tories and  to  have  written  elegies  as  well  as  tragedies. 
Euripides  also  had  a  son,  or  a  nephew,  to  whom  he  left 
his  unpublished  plays,  and  who  also  produced  tragedies  of 
his  own. 


244  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Carcinus,  a  tragic  poet  of  the  time  of  Sophocles  and 
Euripides,  had  a  son,  Xenocles,  who  also  produced  tragedies, 
Carcinus  and  an(^  *n  the  fourth  century  the  younger  Carci- 
his  descend-  nus,  son  of  Xenocles,  was  a  successful  and 
ants-  popular  writer,  who  produced  one  hundred  and 

sixty  tragedies  and  won  numerous  victories.  He  spent  a 
large  part  of  his  life  in  Syracuse  at  the  court  of  the 
younger  Dionysius.  His  son,  the  younger  Xenocles,  was 
also  a  tragic  poet. 

Among  the  other  tragic  poets  of  the  fifth  century  are 
none  who  deserve  more  than  a  passing  notice.  Critias,  the 
pupil  of  Socrates,  best  known  as  the  leader  of 
tus  Ar'istar-  ^ne  Thirty  Tyrants,  was  an  orator  of  distinc- 
chus,  Neo-  tion,  a  writer  of  elegies,  and  a  tragic  poet.  He 
phron,  sthen-  seems  to  have  imitated  Euripides  and  to  have 
inserted  much  philosophical  reflection  into  his 
tragedies.  Meletus  is  better  known  as  one  of  the  accusers 
of  Socrates  than  as  a  tragic  poet.  His  lyrics  appear  to 
have  been  coarse,  and  perhaps  indecent.  He  wrote  a  con- 
nected tetralogy  on  the  subject  of  (Edipus,  the  latest 
known  example  of  such  a  work.  Aristarchus  of  Tegea  was 
a  prolific  author  of  the  time  of  Euripides.  His  Achilles 
was  imitated  by  the  Roman  poet  Ennius  and  is  the  only 
tragedy  not  by  one  of  the  three  great  tragedians  known  to 
have  been  adapted  by  a  Roman  author.  Neophron  of 
Sicyon  gave  great  prominence  to  slave  characters.  His 
Medea  is  said  to  have  suggested  the  play  of  the  same 
name  by  Euripides.  •  Sthenelus  is  said  to  have  written  trag- 
edies in  the  language  of  ordinary  life.  Several  other  tragic 
poets  are  known  by  name,  but  only  as  writers  of  little 
importance. 

In  the  fourth  century  tragedy  continued  to  be  popular 
Tragedy  in  a^  Athens,  and  spread  also  to  other  cities, 
the  fourth  Most  of  the  tragic  poets,  however,  wherever 
century.  they  happened  to  be  born,  came  to  Athens  to 

compete  for  the  prize  in  the  great  contests,  while  others 


MINOR  TRAGIC  POETS  245 

merely  sent  their  works  to  Athens.  The  subjects  of  tragedy- 
were  still  the  ancient  myths,  and  it  was  difficult  for  any  one 
to  treat  them  with  originality.  The  result  was  a  tedious 
monotony,  hardly  improved  by  the  introduction  of  rhetor- 
ical nourishes.  Theodectes  of  Phaselis,  who  was  born 
about  375  and  settled  in  Athens  at  an  early  age,  took  up 
speech  writing  as  his  principal  profession,  but  also  com- 
posed tragedies.  He  competed  in  thirteen  contests  and 
won  eight  prizes.  When  Artemisia  of  Halicarnassus  in- 
vited the  most  distinguished  oratorical  writers  to  compose 
speeches  in  honor  of  the  memory  of  her  husband,  Maus- 
solus,  Theodectes  was  defeated  by  Theopompus,  but  his 
tragedy  in  honor  of  Maussolus  gained  the  prize.  He  seems 
to  have  had  some  dramatic  ability,  but  his  style  was  too 
rhetorical.  Chaeremon,  who  nourished  about  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century,  was  the  most  distinguished  of  a  class 
of  writers  who  composed  tragedies  to  be  read  rather  than 
to  be  acted.  His  diction  was  pleasing,  his  style  finished  and 
careful,  though  somewhat  artificial.  He  seems  to  have  ex- 
celled in  description  and  to  have  •  been  a  lover  of  nature, 
especially  of  flowers.  The  philosopher  Heraclides  of  Pon- 
tus,  his  pupil  Dionysius,  and  other  writers  of  the  fourth 
century  composed  tragedies  under  the  names  of  earlier 
poets,  either  with  intent  to  deceive  or  merely  as  literary 
exercises.  So  the  fragments  preserved  under  the  name 
of  Thespis  are  due  to  Heraclides.  Dionysius  the  elder, 
tyrant  of  Syracuse  from  405  to  367  b.  c,  is  the  most 
interesting  of  the  remaining  tragic  poets  of  the  fourth 
century.  He  wrote  histories  and  perhaps  comedies,  but 
his  tragedies  were  his  most  important  literary  produc- 
tions. They  do  not  appear  to  have  been  very  success- 
ful, though  they  are  mentioned  by  later  writers,  and  one 
of  them  gained  a  prize  at  the  Lensean  festival  in  Athens 
in  367. 

Tragedies   continued  to  be  written  and  acted  in  the 
time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who  caused  them  to  be  per- 


246  GREEK  LITERATURE 

formed  at  his  festivals,  and  even  after  the  fourth  century 
— in  fact,  until  long  after  the  Romans  conquered  Greece. 
Tragic  performances  became  a  regular  part  of  various  festi- 
vals in  all  parts  of  the  Greek  world  and  even  in  Parthia. 
But  the  vigorous  growth  of  tragic  poetry  ends  with  the 
death  of  Euripides. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

THE    OLD   COMEDY-ARISTOPHANES 

The  origin  and  development  of  comedy — Susarion,  about  560  b.  c. 
— Epicharmus,  about  485  b.  c. — Mimes — Sophron,  about  440  b.  c. — 
Pantomimes — Early  Attic  comedy — Chionides  and  Ecphantides,  wrote 
480-450  b.  c. — Magnes,  wrote  460-430  b.  c. — Cratinus,  wrote  about  450- 
423  b.  c. — Crates,  445  b.  c. — Pherecrates,  about  440  b.  c. — Eupolis,  446- 
411  b.c. — Aristophanes,  about  450-385  b.  c. — His  life,  style,  and  composi- 
tion— The  extant  plays — Analysis  of  the  Birds. 

Comedy,  like  tragedy,  arose  from  the  worship  of  Dio- 
nysus, and  was  developed  into  a  branch  of  literature  at 
Athens  in  the  fifth  century.  Its  development  was  some- 
what later  than  that  of  tragedy  and  its  vigorous  life  con- 
tinued longer.  Tragedy  arose  from  the  dithyramb,  which 
was  a  regular  and,  in  part  at  least,  a  serious  form  of  wor- 
ship. Comedy,  on  the  other  hand,  had  its  origin  in  the 
unrestrained,  boisterous,  and  sometimes  licentious  fun  of 
the  processions  connected  with  the  festivals  of  the  god  of 
wine.  Whether  the  word  comedy  is  derived 
Origin  of  from  komos,  festive  procession,  or  from  kome, 
village,  is  uncertain.  In  any  case,  comedy 
arose  from  the  festive  processions  connected  with  the  rustic 
worship  of  Dionysus.  Among  the  Dorians  such  proces- 
sions were  popular,  and  those  who  took  part  in  them  im- 
provised jokes  and  rude  verses,  probably  at  times  imperson- 
ating their  neighbors  or  others  against  whom  the  shafts  of 
their  wit  were  aimed.  In  the  villages  of  the  Megarid  bac- 
chic  processions  with  impersonations,  mimic  dances,  and 
jokes,  probably  of  a  political  and  satiric  nature,  were  popu- 
17  247 


248  GREEK  LITERATURE 

lar,  and  this  so-called  Megarian  comedy  was  introduced 
into  the  neighboring  Attica  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixth 
century.  According  to  one  account,  the  first  comic  per- 
formances in  Attica  were  at  Icaria,  the  birthplace  of 
Thespis. 

This  Megarian  comedy  had  no  plot,  but  consisted  merely 
of  detached  scenes  and  coarse  buffoonery.  The  words 
were  not  written,  and  were  originally  improvised  by  the 
revelers,  apparently  in  prose.  The  first  who  composed 
comedies  in  verse  was  Susarion,  who  is  called 
the  inventor  of  comedy.  He  was  born  at  Tri- 
podiscus,  a  village  of  the  Megarid,  not  far  from  600  b.  a, 
for  he  began  to  be  known  about  575.  His  comedies  had  as 
yet  no  plot,  and  were  not  more  than  three  or  four  hundred 
lines  long.  It  is  not  even  certain  that  they  were  committed 
to  writing.  The  names  Myllus  and  Maeson,  sometimes  sup- 
posed to  be  those  of  authors  of  primitive  comedies,  are 
more  probably  names  of  stock  characters  in  the  comic 
scenes— Myllus  a  man  who  pretends  to  be  deaf  and  dumb, 
but  who  really  hears  everything,  Maeson  a  fat  cook.  If 
there  were  any  contests  or  competitions  in  comedy  in  Attica 
before  the  fifth  century  they  can  have  been  only  local  con- 
tests between  village  jesters. 

Such  rude  beginnings  of  comedy  as  existed  in  the  Doric 
states  of  the  Peloponnesus  were  to  be  found  also  in  Sicily, 
and  here  an  important  advance  was  made.  Aristoxenus  of 
Selinus  appears  to  have  written  iambics  of  a  comic  and  sa- 
tiric sort  about  the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  and  may  in 
some  measure  have  prepared  the  way  for  Phormus  and 
Epicharmus.  Of  the  former  little  is  known  except  that 
Gelo  entrusted  to  him  the  education  of  his  children,  but 

Epicharmus  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  orig- 
Epicharmus.      j^   genjug         jje  wag  |Dorn    jn   the   jslan(J   0f 

Cos  in  the  second  half  of  the  sixth  century,  but  was  taken 
as  a  child  to  Megara  in  Sicily.  He  afterward  moved  to 
Syracuse,  where  he  gave  performances  in  486  b.  c.      He 


THE   OLD   COMEDY  249 

died  at  the  age  of  ninety  years.  His  comedies,  the  number 
of  which  is  variously  given  as  thirty-six  and  fifty-two,  were 
partly  on  mythological  subjects,  some  of  them  perhaps 
derived  from  the  Athenian  satyr  dramas,  and  partly  on 
subjects  drawn  from  daily  life.  They  were  written  in  the 
Sicilian  dialect,  and  in  iambic  and  trochaic  metres.  The 
extant  fragments  and  the  statements  of  later  writers  show 
that  Epicharmus  excelled  in  description,  and  that  his  com- 
edies contained  many  sententious  remarks.  It  is  probably 
due  to  the  philosophical  character  of  these  remarks  that  he 
acquired  reputation  as  a  philosopher.  In  later  times  he 
was  classed  as  a  Pythagorean,  and  some  philosophical  works 
were  ascribed  to  him.  H^s  true  claim  to  greatness  rests 
upon  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  to  compose  a  real 
comedy,  in  which  all  the  scenes  formed  parts  of  one  and 
the  same  plot. 

It  was  at  Syracuse  too  that  mimes  were  first  perfected 
by  Sophron,  a  contemporary  of  Euripides.  These  were 
prose  dialogues  of  no  great  length  which  gave 
comic  and  satirical  representations  of  scenes  of 
daily  life  at  Syracuse.  The  mimes  of  Sophron  were  classed 
as  male  and  female,  according  to  the  sex  of  the  persons 
represented.  The  dialect  was  the  Syracusan  Doric. 
Sophron  was  followed  by  his  son  Xenarchus.  In  the  fourth 
century  the  pantomime,  a  sort  of  mythological  dialogue, 
was  developed  in  Sicily. 

The  Attic  demes  already  had  comic  performances  con- 
sisting of  more  or  less  detached  scenes  when  Epicharmus 
invented  comedies  with  consistent  plots.  This  innovation 
was  quickly  seized  upon,  and  Attic  comedy  developed 
rapidly.  Tragedy  had  at  this  time  its  established  forms, 
and  comedy  imitated  these  without  giving  up  the  old  habit 
of  addressing  the  audience  directly,  even  at  times  bringing 
the  audience  into  the  action  of  the  play.  So  all  through 
the  fifth  century,  at  least,  comedy  shows  traces  of  its  com- 
posite nature,  partly  the  old  rustic  buffoonery,  and  partly 


250  GREEK  LITERATURE 

imitation  of  tragedy.  In  outward  form  tragedy  was  pretty 
closely  copied.  Just  when  comedy  became  a  recognized 
part  of  the  Dionysiac  festivals  is  not  known,  but  it  was  cer- 
tainly before  the  death  of  iEschylus,  and  probably  not  far 
from  470  b.  c.  Thereafter  comic  poets  received  choruses 
from  the  archon,  and  comedy  took  its  place  beside  tragedy 
as  a  part  of  the  public  worship  and  recreation,  but  not 
quite  as  an  equal,  for  each  comic  poet  presented  only  one 
play,  not  three. 

The  earliest  Attic  comic  poets  known  are  Chionides, 
Ecphantides,  and  Magnes,  who  are  said  to  have  been 
Chionides,  younger  than  Epicharmus.  Chionides  and 
Ecphantides,  Ecphantides,  of  whom  little  is  known,  seem  to 
and  Magnes.  have  produced  their  comedies  between  480  and 
450  b.  c,  and  Magnes  was  active  from  about  460  to  430. 
He  gained  eleven  prizes,  but  no  important  fragments  of  his 
works  remain.  From  the  titles  of  some  of  his  plays — the 
Frogs,  the  Birds,  the  Lydians,  the  Gall-Insects — it  is  evident 
that  his  choruses  were  sometimes  dressed  in  fantastic  cos- 
tumes. 

Cratinus,  somewhat  younger  than  Magnes,  began  to 
produce  comedies  not  much  before  450  b.  c,  and  his  last 
piece  was  presented  in  423,  shortly  before  his 
death.  He  won  nine  prizes,  and  left  twenty- 
one  plays.  He  did  much  to  increase  the  importance  of 
comedy  and  to  fix  the  details  of  its  form.  Some,  at  least, 
of  his  comedies  were  political,  attacking  the  person  and 
policy  of  Pericles.  His  works  are  lost,  and  the  extant  frag- 
ments give  us  no  idea  of  their  excellence,  which  must  have 
been  considerable.  Aristophanes  accused  him  of  drunken- 
ness, and  his  last  play,  which  won  the  prize  in  423  over  the 
Clouds  of  Aristophanes,  was  entitled  the  Bottle,  and  had  for 
its  main  purpose  the  defense  of  the  author  against  the 
charge  of  drunkenness  and  consequent  loss  of  power. 

Orates,  at  first  an  actor  employed  by  Cratinus,  won  his 
first  victory  as  a  writer  about  445  b.  c.  ■  Fifteen  titles  of 


ARISTOPHANES  251 

plays  are  preserved  under  his  name,  but  eight  of  these  seem 
to  belong  to  a  later  writer  of  uncertain  date.  The  plays  of 
Crates  seem  to  have  been  gay  and  merry.  He 
crates,'  Eupo-  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  introduce 
lis,  Phryni-  drunken  persons.  Only  insignificant  fragments 
chus,  Plato.  0f  hjg  works  remain.  He  refrained  from  abu- 
sive personal  satire,  as  did  also  his  slightly  younger  con- 
temporary and  rival  Pherecrates,  who  produced  sixteen 
comedies,  the  most  famous  of  which,  the  Savages,  appeared 
in  420  b.  c.  Eupolis,  apparently  the  greatest  of  the  rivals 
of  Aristophanes,  presented  his  first  comedy  in  429  b.  c, 
when  he  was  only  seventeen  years  old.  He  was  killed  in 
battle  at  the  Hellespont  in  411.  His  works  were  so  suc- 
cessful that  although  he  wrote  only  eleven  or  fourteen 
comedies  he  gained  seven  prizes.  Phrynichus,  who  pro- 
duced his  first  piece  about  430,  wrote  at  least  ten  comedies, 
the  titles  of  which  are  preserved.  Of  his  style  and  his  wit 
we  can  not  judge  from  the  extant  fragments.  He  died  in 
Sicily,  apparently  after  405  B.  c.  Plato,  the  comic  poet, 
not  to  be  confounded  with  the  philosopher,  was  before  the 
public  from  about  the  middle  of  the  Peloponnesian  War 
until  after  390.  The  existing  fragments  of  his  twenty, 
eight  comedies  are  numerous  but  unsatisfactory. 

The  greatest  comic  poet  of  the  fifth  century  and  the 
only  one  of  whose  works  more  than  unimportant  fragments 
remain  is  Aristophanes,  who  was  born  about 
ns  op  anes.  ^e  middle  0f  the  fifth  century  and  died  soon 
after  388  b.  c.  Little  is  known  of  his  life  except  as  he  re- 
fers in  his  comedies  to  his  relations  with  his  rivals  and 
other  contemporaries.  He  was  an  Athenian  of  the  deme 
Kydathene,  though  there  seems  to  have  been  some  doubt 
about  the  citizenship  of  his  father,  Philippus.  He  com- 
posed forty  or  forty-four  comedies,  eleven  of  which  are  pre- 
served. But  before  discussing  these  comedies  it  may  be 
well  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  structure  of  an  Attic 
comedy  of  this  time.     It  will,  however,  be  unnecessary  to 


252  GREEK  LITERATURE 

do  more  than  point  out  the  differences  between  comedy 
and  tragedy,  remembering  that  in  most  particulars  comedy 
imitated  the  tragic  forms,  but  retained  more  freedom  in 

their  use.  So  the  number  of  actors  in  comedy 
ence  in  form  as  in  tragedy  was  three,  but  the  comic  poets 
between  made  apparently  freer  use  of  extra  persons — 

comedy  and      taken  from  the  chorus  or  added  at  the  expense 

of  the  choregus — who  spoke  only  a  few  words. 
The  comic  chorus  consisted  of  twenty-four  persons,  twice 
the  number  of  the  tragic  chorus  before  Sophocles,  and  in- 
terfered with  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  actors  more  than 
did  the  chorus  in  tragedy.  Moreover,  once  in  nearly  every 
comedy,  and  twice  in  some,  the  chorus  threw  off  their  outer 
garments,  came  forward  and  addressed  the  audience  directly 
in  the  name  of  the  poet,  explaining  his  motives,  defending 
him  against  previous  attacks,  declaring  his  political  views, 
and  reproaching  the  citizens  individually  and  collectively 
for  their  folly  or  misconduct.  This  part  of  the  play  is 
called  the  parabasis,  because  the  chorus  "  came  forward  " 
to  address  the  audience.  The  chorus  wore  a  tight-fitting, 
padded  costume,  over  which  was  a  cloak  or  any  other  gar- 
ment adapted  to  the  sort  of  persons  the  chorus  was  supposed 
to  represent.  In  the  Wasps,  for  instance,  the  chorus  wore 
long  stings  and  perhaps  feelers  and  wings,  and  in  the  Birds 
the  chorus  was  fitted  out  with  wings  and  feathers.  The 
masks,  too,  were  as  fantastic  as  the  costumes,  but  there 
was  probably  no  attempt  to  represent  anything  accurately. 
The  fun  consisted  partly  in  ridiculous  suggestiveness.  The 
actors  did  not  wear  the  high  buskins  and  dignified  costumes 
worn  in  tragedy,  unless  they  happened  to  be  playing  a  bur- 
lesque in  ridicule  of  tragic  pomp,  but  were  dressed  more 
nearly  in  the  costume  of  the  ordinary  Athenian  citizen,  per- 
haps with  masks  intended  to  caricature  well-known  persons. 
The  plot  is  usually  developed  rather  early  in  the  play, 
and  consists  as  a  general  rule  of  a  violent  conflict  between 
two  opposing  parties,  which  attack  each  other  with  abuse, 


ARISTOPHrANES  253 

ribald  jokes,  missiles,  and  even  blows.  The  chorus  is  often 
divided,  one-half  taking  each  side.  Presently  one  side  or 
the  other  is  victorious,  and  the  re**t  of  the  play  consists  of 
ridiculous  scenes  showing  the  results  of  the  victory.  Just 
as  a  tragedy  was  divided  into  episodes  by  the  choral  songs, 
so  a  comedy  was  divided  by  the  songs  of  the  chorus,  but 
these  varied  more  in  length  as  well  \as  in  form  than  did 
the  tragic  choral  songs.  The  metres  of  comedy  were  many 
and  were  treated  with  less  careful  accuracy  than  those  of 
tragedy.  Naturally  quick  and  lively  metres  were  more 
favored  than  slow  and  dignified  measures  such  as  tragedy 
demanded.  The  old  Attic  comedy  never  belied  its  origin 
from  the  tipsy  village  procession  in  honor  of  the  wine  god. 
It  was  full  of  most  exuberant,  fantastic,  unrestrained,  even, 
indecent  wit,  stopping  at  nothing  to  raise  a  laugh,  utterly 
outspoken  in  praise  or  blame,  and  yet  its  coarseness  is  re- 
deemed by  its  sparkling  brilliancy,  admirable  originality, 
and  sometimes  poetic  beauty. 

The  earliest  play  of  Aristophanes — which  he  did  not 
present  under  his  own  name — was  the  Daitales  or  Ban- 
queters, performed  in  427  b.  c,  and  .followed 
Aristo^n  s  ^e  next  year  by  the  Babylonians,  in  which  he 
attacked  Cleon  with  so  much  vigor  that  Callis- 
tratus,  under  whose  name  the  play  appeared,  was  brought 
to  trial,  and  Aristophanes  was  accused  of  not  being  an 
Athenian  citizen,  a  charge  against  which  he.  seems  to  have 
defended  himself  successfully. 

The  eleven  extant  plays  are,  in  the  order  of  their  pro- 
duction, as  follows :  1.  The  Acharnians  (425),  a  plea  for 
peace  with  Sparta;  2,  the  Knights  (424),  a  violent  attack 
upon  Cleon,  the  first  play  presented  by  Aristophanes  under 
his  own  name ;  3,  the  Clouds  (423),1  directed  against  the 
philosophical  speculations  and  rhetorical  teachings  of  the 
day,  represented  in  the  play  by  the  person  of  Socrates ;  4, 

'    x  The  extant  version  of  this  play  is  incomplete  and  was  never  per- 
formed.    The  original  version,  performed  in  423,  is  lost. 


254  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  Wasps  (422),  satirizing  the  demagogues  and  the  passion 
for  lawsuits ;  5,  the  Peace  (421),  urging  the  conclusion  of 
peace  with  the  Spartans ;  6,  the  Birds  (414),  satirizing, 
among  other  things,  the  high-flown  hopes  of  the  Athenians 
when  they  sent  out  the  Sicilian  expedition ;  7,  the  Lysistrata 
(411),  an  extremely  indecent  play,  directed  against  the  Pel- 
oponnesian  War  and  Euripides,  and  ending  with  the  conclu- 
sion of  peace  between  the  Athenians  and  the  Spartans ;  8, 
the  Thesmophoriazusm,  or  Women  at  the  Festival  of  Demeter 
(411),  attacking  the  women  of  Athens  as  well  as  Euripides 
and  his  innovations;  9,  the  Frogs  (405),  a  sharp  criticism 
of  Euripides  by  comparison  of  his  characters  and  his  tech- 
nical methods  with  those  of  iEschylus  ;  10,  the  Ecclesiazusm 
(392  or  389),  satirizing  the  socialistic  and  communistic  no- 
tions current  anmog  philosophers  and  other  people  at  that 
time  ;  11,  the  Plutus  (388),1  criticizing  the  distribution  of 
wealth  in  this  world. 

This  list  shows  the  scope  of  the  subjects  chosen  by  Ar- 
istophanes, but  gives  no  idea  of  his  manner  of  treatrnent. 
It  is  noticeable  that  the  earlier  plays  are  more  personal  and 
political  'than  the  later,  which  are  directed  against  general 
tendencies  and  circumstances. 

The  most  brilliant  and  characteristic  of  the  existing 
plays  of  Aristophanes  is  the  Birds.  Two  Athenians,  Pei- 
thetserus  (Plausible)  and  Euelpides  (Hopeful), 
tired  of  the  taxes,  fines,  and  perpetual  lawsuits 
of  Athens,  go  to  the  land  of  the  birds  and  summon  the  hoo- 
poe from  his  house,  which  is  represented  in  the  scenery. 
Hoopoe  appears  in  a  most  fantastic  and  absurd  feathered 
costume,  and  describes  the  life  of  the  birds  in  such  terms 
that  Peithetserus  has  a  brilliant  idea  : 

Peithetcerus.  Concentrate ; 

Bring  all  your  birds  together.     Build  a  city. 

Hoopoe.  The  birds  1     How  could  we  build  a  city  ?     Where  ? 

1  This  is  the  second  version  of  this  play.  An  earlier  version,  now 
lost,  was  performed  in  408. 


ARISTOPHANES  255 

Peith.  Nonsense.  You  can't  be  serious.  What  a  question  ! 
Look  down. 

Hoo.  I  do. 

Peith.  Look  up  now. 

Hoo.  So  I  do. 

Peith.  Now  turn  your  neck  round. 

Hoo.  I  should  sprain  it,  though. 

Peith.  Come,  what  d'ye  see  ? 

Hoo.  The  clouds  and  sky ;  that's  all. 

Peith.  Well,  that  we  call  the  pole  and  atmosphere. 
And  would  it  not  serve  you  birds  for  a  metropole  ? * 

He  then  develops  his  plan  that  the  birds  shall  build  a  city 
in  the  clouds,  to  be  called  Nephelococcygia  (Cloudcuckoo- 
town),  where  they  can  intercept  the  smoke  arising  from 
men's  sacrifices  to  the  gods,  and  thus  rule  gods  and  men. 
So  Hoopoe  calls  his  wife,  the  Nightingale,  to  summon  the 

other  birds : 

Awake !    Awake ! 
Sleep  no  more,  my  gentle  mate  ! 
With  your  tiny  tawny  bill, 
Wake  the  tuneful  echo  shrill, 

On  vale  or  hill ; 
Or  in  her  airy  rocky  seat, 
Let  her  listen  and  repeat 
The  tender  ditty  that  ye  tell, 

The  sad  lament, 

The  dire  event, 
To  luckless  Itys  that  befell. 

Thence  the  strain 

Shall  rise  again, 
*  And  soar  amain, 

Up  to  the  lofty  palace  gate, 
Where  mighty  Apollo  sits  in  state 
In  Jove's  abode,  with  his  ivory  lyre, 
Hymning  aloud  to  the  heavenly  quire ; 
While  all  the  gods  shall  join  with  thee 

In  a  celestial  symphony.2 

1  Lines  172  ff.  The  selections  from  the  Birds  are  taken  from  Frere's 
translation.  2  209  ff. 


256  GREEK  LITERATURE 

A  flute  solo  represents  the  Nightingale's  call,  and  the 
birds  come  hurrying  in  at  the  summons  of  Hoopoe,  the  whole 
chorus  of  twenty-four  ridiculously  dressed  to  resemble 
twenty-four  different  birds.  When  they  see  the  men,  they 
wish  to  tear  them  to  pieces,  and  Peithetaerus  and  Euelpides 
make  a  barrier  of  their  pots  and  pans  to  defend  themselves. 
Hoopoe,  however,  persuades  the  birds  to  listen  to  Peithe- 
taerus, who  first  proves  in  comic  fashion  that  the  birds,  not 
the  gods,  were  in  the  beginning  the  lords  of  the  universe, 
and  then  unfolds  his  plan,  which  is  enthusiastically  adopted. 
The  two  Athenians  go  with  Hoopoe  into  the  house  to  put 
on  plumage,  and  the  chorus,  left  alone,  sings  the  parabasis, 
the  first  part  of  which  parodies  the  current  speculations 
about  the  origin  of  the  world,  while  the  second  part  recites 
the  many  advantages  of  having  wings.  There  are  in  the 
parabasis  several  jokes  directed  against  well-known  men  at 
Athens,  and  against  the  habits  of  the  citizens. 

Peithetaerus  and  Euelpides  come  out  dressed  in  their 
new  suits  of  feathers  and  give  the  town  its  name.  Then 
follow  several  scenes  illustrating  the  difficulties  of  founding 
a  colony.  A  priest  comes  to  perform  the  rites  of  dedica- 
tion ;  then  a  soothsayer  to  sell  oracles ;  then  a  surveyor, 
Meton,  equipped  with  his  instruments ;  then  a  commissioner 
from  Athens ;  and,  finally,  a  hawker  of  Athenian  laws  for 
colonies.  These  are  all  disposed  of  in  various  ways  by  Pei- 
thetaerus, who  is  finally  so  tired  by  the  interruptions  that 
he  goes  off  to  perform  his  sacrifice  elsewhere.  In  a  second 
parabasis  the  chorus  comments  upon  various  persons  in 
Athens,  and  promises  the  judges  wealth  if  they  give  the 
prize  to  the  author  of  the  play. 

In  the  following  scenes  the  plot  is  resumed.  A  messen- 
ger reports  that  the  town  is  finished,  telling  how  the  differ- 
ent birds  have  done  the  various  parts  of  the  work.  Then  a 
second  messenger  rushes  in  to  announce  that  a  god  has 
broken  into  the  city.  This  proves  to  be  the  messenger 
goddess  Iris,  sent  to  order  men  to  perform  their  customary 


ARISTOPHANES  257 

sacrifices.  She  is  frightened,  but  saucy,  and  Peithetaerus 
treats  her  like  an  impudent  girl,  making  fun  of  her  ridicu- 
lous costume,  and  sending  her  off  to  Zeus  with  the  threat 
that  if  Zeus  does  not  keep  quiet  an  army  of  birds  will  attack 
him.  Presently  come  people  from  the  earth,  eager  for  citi- 
zenship in  the  new  city ;  first  a  young  parricide,  then  the 
wretched  poet  and  musician  Cinesias,  and  last  a  sycophant, 
with  all  of  whom  Peithetaerus  carries  on  humorous  dialogues 
before  turning  them  out  of  town.  Prometheus  then  comes 
in,  disguised  and  with  his  face  covered,  carrying  an  umbrella, 
which  he  holds  over  his  head  that  the  gods  may  not  recog- 
nize him  when  he  uncovers  his  face.  He  tells  Peithetaerus 
that  the  barbarian  gods  are  in  revolt  because  they  are  starv- 
ing, now  that  their  sacrifices  are  intercepted  by  the  birds, 
and  that  the  gods  are  ready  to  sue  for  peace,  but  he  advises 
him  not  to  make  terms  unless  Zeus  give  him  the  hand  of 
"  Royalty  "  in  marriage,  "  a  most  delightful,  charming  girl, 
Jove's  housekeeper,  that  manages  his  matters,  serves  out 
his  thunderbolts,  arranges  everything."  Soon  Poseidon, 
Heracles,  and  a  Triballian  god  come  in  as  envoys  from  the 
gods.  Heracles,  being  a  notorious  glutton,  is  bribed  by 
Peithetaerus,  who  cooks  various  dainties  for  him  and  prom- 
ises him  a  dinner  for  his  vote ;  the  Triballian's  language 
can  not  be  understood,  so  it  is  assumed  that  he  votes  with 
Heracles,  and  so,  in  spite  of  Poseidon's  determined  opposi- 
tion, the  envoys  accept  the  terms  offered  by  Peithetaerus. 
These  episodes  are  separated  and  enlivened  by  short  choral 
songs,  and  the  play  ends  with  a  wedding  procession.  The 
chorus  sings  a  hymeneal  hymn,  beginning  : 

Stand  aside  and  clear  the  ground, 

Spreading  in  a  circle  round 

With  a  worthy  welcoming, 

To  salute  our  noble  king 

In  his  splendour  and  his  pride, 

Coming  hither,  side  by  side, 

With  his  happy,  lovely  bride. 


258  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Oh,  the  fair,  delightful  face  ! 
What  a  figure  !     What  a  grace  ! 
What  a  presence  !     What  a  carriage  ! 
What  a  noble,  worthy  marriage  ! 
Let  the  birds  rejoice  and  sing, 
At  the  wedding  of  the  king ; 
Happy  to  congratulate 
Such  a  blessing  to  the  state. 

Hymen,  Hymen,  ho  !  ■ 

And  finally  Peithetaerus  goes  out,  leading  his  bride  and 

singing : 

Birds  of  ocean  and  of  air, 
Hither  in  a  troop  repair 
To  the  royal  ceremony^ 
Our  triumphant  matrimony ! 

Come  to  us  to  feast  and  feed  ye ! 

Come  to  revel,  dance,  and  sing  ! — 
Lovely  creature  !     Let  me  lead  ye 

Hand  in  hand,  and  wing  to  wing.2 

Such  a  brief  summary  as  has  been  given  fails  to  show 
the  brilliant  wit  and  sharp  personal  invective  or  satire  dis- 
played in  the  dialogue  and  the  parabasis,  but  gives  some 
idea  of  the  fantastic  humor  and  poetic  inspiration  of  the 
greatest  comic  poet  of  the  fifth  century. 

»  1720  ff.  2 1755  ff. 


CHAPTEE  XXII 

COMEDY  AFTER   THE   FIFTH   CENTURY 

Divisions  of  comedy — The  Middle  Comedy — The  Plutus  of  Aris- 
tophanes— Poets  of  the  Middle  Comedy — Antiphanes,  about  404-330 
b.  c. — Anaxandrides,  wrote  from  376-348  b.  c. — Alexis  of  Thurii,  be- 
fore 400  to  after  300  b.  c. — Eubulus  and  Archippus,  fourth  century — 
The  Amphitruo  of  Plautus — The  New  Comedy — Its  characters— Phile- 
mon, 361-262  b.  c— Menander,  about  344-292  b.  c— The  Farmer  of 
Menander — Diphilus,  second  half  of  the  fourth  century — Apollodorus 
of  Carystus,  second  half  of  the  fourth  century — Posidippus,  first  half 
of  the  third  century. 

Attic  comedy  falls  naturally  into  three  divisions :  the 
Old   Comedy,  from  the  beginning  to  about  400  B.  c ;  the 

Middle  Comedy,  from  about  400  to  about  336 ; 
Divisions  of  and  the  New  Comedy  from  about  336  to  the 
comedy.  .  . 

time  when  comedies  ceased  to  be  original  or 

important,  about  250  b.  c.  The  Old  Comedy  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  brilliant  and  full  of  vigor,  but  violent,  personal,  and 
obscene,  a  visible  expression  of  the  wild  fantastic  thoughts 
(often  on  important  subjects)  which  surged  through  the 
brain  of  the  half-drunken  revelers  inspired  by  the  wine  god 
Dionysus.  The  New  Comedy  was  refined  and  polished, 
indecent  only  by  allusion  if  at  all,  interesting  not  through 
wild,  fantastic  inventions  and  scenes  of  startling  absurdity, 
but  through  carefully  executed  and  well-conceived  plots 
and  accurate  observation  of  real  life.  The  Middle  Comedy 
forms  a  transition  from  one  to  the  other.  In  the  Old 
Comedy  the  chorus  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  but  long 
before  the  Middle  Comedy  passes  into  the  New  Comedy, 

259 


260  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  chorus  has  lost  its  importance  and  is  often  entirely 
omitted. 

The  Plutus  of  Aristophanes,  at  least  in  its  revised  form, 
belongs  already  to  the  Middle  Comedy.  Its  purpose  is  no 
The  Plutus  of  longer  abusive  satire,  but  merely  amusement. 
Aristoph-  Plutus,  the  god  of  wealth,  is  supposed  to  be 
anes.  blind,  which  accounts  for  the  unjust  distribu- 

tion of  wealth  and  poverty.  In  the  play  he  gains  the  power 
of  sight,  and  poverty  is  at  last  banished  from  the  earth. 
The  chorus  has  but  little  to  say,  there  is  no  parabasis,  and 
there  are  no  regular  choral  songs.  As  was  the  case  in  the 
Old  Comedy,  a  large  part  of  the  play  is  taken  up  with 
scenes  having  no  effect  upon  the  development  of  the  plot, 
but  merely  showing  some  of  the  results  of  the  action 
finished  in  the  early  part  of  the  play — in  the  Plutus ,  the 
new  complications  arising  from  the  new  distribution  of 
wealth. 

The  reason  for  the  change  from  the  Old  to  the  Middle 
and  from  the  Middle  to  the  New  Comedy  is  the  change  in 
the  taste  of  the  Athenians.  Perhaps  the  poverty  resulting 
from  the  Peloponnesian  War  may  have  made  the  expense 
of  a  well-trained  chorus  of  twenty-four  persons  hard  to 
bear,  and  perhaps  a  law  forbidding  direct  attacks  upon 
living  persons  may  have  aided  to  change  the  tone  of  com- 
edy, but  the  real  reason  for  the  change  was  the  change  in 
Character  of  ^ne  Public  taste.  In  the  Middle  Comedy  the 
the  Middle  subjects  chosen  were  often  mythological,  re- 
Comedy,  minding  us  of  the  early  comedies  of  Epichar- 
mus,  and  were  often  derived  from  every-day  life.  But  the 
extant  fragments  are  so  few  and  brief  that  we  can  gain  no 
accurate  idea  of  the  treatment  of  the  plots.  The  fixed,  con- 
ventional characters  which  appear  in  the  New  Comedy — 
parasites,  boors,  braggarts,  slaves,  lovers,  mistresses,  and  old 
men — were  present  in  the  Middle  Comedy,  and  were  prob- 
ably borrowed  in  the  first  place  from  Epicharmus.  Per- 
sonalities were  not  wanting  in  the  Middle  Comedy,  but 


COMEDY  AFTER  THE  FIFTH  CENTURY  261 

they  took  the  form  of  innuendo  and  satire  rather  than  of 
such  open  abuse  as  was  dear  to  Aristophanes.  The  MioTolTe 
Comedy,  following  the  example  set  by  Euripides  in  his 
tragedies,  tried  to  represent  human  character  as  it  is,  giv- 
ing up  the  fantastic  unreality  of  the  Old  Comedy,  but 
really  fine  characterjirawing  was  not  developed  until  the 
New_Qojnfidy  came  into  being. 

Seventy-five  poets  and  six  hundred  and  seventeen  plays 
are  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  Middle  Comedy,  but  of  all 

these   little   is    known.      A  rjti  phages,   not   an 

Athenian  by  birth,  was  born  shortly  before 
400  b.  c.  and  appeared  as  a  comic  poet  at  Athens  before 
380.  He  is  said  to  have  written  two  hundred  and  sixty  or 
even  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  comedies  and  to  have 
won  thirteen  victories.  Fragments  of  over  two  hundred 
pieces  are  preserved,  belonging  especially  to  scenes  of  hos- 
pitality, but  containing  also  some  pointed  and  witty  re- 
marks. Antiphanes  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-four  years, 
not  far  from  330  B.  c.  He  was  therefore  the  contemporary 
of  Demosthenes,  Plato,  and  Isocrates,  and  his  life  extended 
through  the  entire  period  of  the  Middle  Comedy. 

Anaxandrides.  of  Camirus  in  Ehodes,  or  Colophon  in 
Asia  Minor,  a  comic  and  dithyrambic  poet,  won  his  first 

prize  in  comedy  at  Athens  in  376  B.  c.    He  also 
naxan-  ^oo^.  ^^  jn  ^e  dramatic  exhibition  given  by 

Philip  of  Macedon  in  celebration  of  his  capture 
of  Olynthus  in  348  b.  c.  He  composed  sixty-five  plays  and 
gained  ten  victories. 

ATfma,  horn  at  Thurii,  in  Italy,  but  a  naturalized  citizen 
of  Athens,  was  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Middle  Comedy, 

as  his  nephew   and    pupil,  Menander,  was  the 

Alexis.  xx'   „  ,  r 

greatest  of  the  Xew  Comedy.  Born  before 
400  B.  c,  he  lived  through  the  entire  fourth  century,  and 
died  at  the  age  of  one  hundred  and  six  years,  leaving  to 
posterity  two  hundred  and  forty-five  plays.  The  titles  of 
many  of  these  show  that   they  belonged  to  the   Middle 


262  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Comedy,  though  the  last  part  of  his  long  life  belongs  to  the 
period  of  the  New  Comedy.  Some  of  his  plays  were  paro- 
dies, others  were  satires  directed  against  philosophers,  and 
in  others  love-affairs  formed  the  basis  of  the  plot.  He 
made  the  part  of  the  parasite  of  great  importance,  and  is 
even  said  to  have  invented  it.  Other  poets  of  the  Middle 
Comedy  were  Eubulus  and  Archippus.     The 

u  u  us  an      Amphitryon  of  Archippus  may  have  been  the 
Archippus.  *         a  rr  J 

original  of  the  Amphitruo  of  Plautus.     Of  the 

other  poets  of  the  Middle  Comedy  whose  names  are  known 

little  or  nothing  is  known  except  the  names. 

The  best  idea  of  the  Middle  Comedy  may  perhaps  be 
derived  from  the  Amphitruo  of  the  Eoman  poet  Plautus,  a 
The  Amphit-  travesty  of  a  mythological  subject,  in  which 
ruo  of  the  confusion  between  Zeus  and  Amphitryon 

Plautus.  an(j   their   two    servants    gives   rise   to   many 

amusing  scenes. 

The  New  Comedy  continues  into  the  Alexandrian  pe- 
riod, but  begins  in  the  Attic  period  and  is  a  direct  devel- 
opment from  the  Middle  Comedy.  It  draws 
c  m  dyW  ^s  pl°tsfromordinarxIiie,  and  the  subject  is 

almost^lwavsTover^  The  Eoman  comic  poets, 
Plautus  and  Terence,  translated  and  adapted  for  their 
Roman  audiences  the  plays  of  the  New  Comedy,  and  it  is 
from  their  Latinjlays  that  we  derive  our  most  complete 
information  about  Greek  comedy  after  336  B.  c.  A  pro- 
logue, somewhat  in  the  manner  of  Euripides,  forms  the 
customary  opening  of  the  piece  and  gives  any  necessary 
explanation  of  the  plot.  A  common  plot  is  based  upon  a 
love-affair  between  a  young  man  and  a  girl  supposed  to  be 
a  slave.  The  girl  has  a  mistress  and  the  young  man  has  a 
father.  To  these  characters  are  added  a  maid  servant,  a 
parasite,  the  servant  of  the  young  man,  his  father's  servant, 
frequently  an  old  man  with  whom  the  father  talks  over  his 
affairs,  and  perhaps  a  second  couple  of  a  young  man  and  a 
girl.     Various  complications  arise  to  hinder  the  course  of 


COMEDY  AFTER  THE  FIFTH   CENTURY  263 

the  young  couple's  love,  but  at  last  the  girl  is  found  to  be 
of  free  birth  and  is  given  to  her  lover.  This  plot,  simple 
in  its  outlines,  is  capable  of  almost  infinite  variety  in  de- 
tails, and  the  conversations  between  the  characters  may  be 
made  interesting  by  witty  repartee,  sage  or  absurd  remarks, 
and  comic  gestures.  The  establishment  of  the  identity  of 
the  young  girl  gives  an  opportunity  for  a  scene  of  recogni- 
tion in  the  manner  of  Euripides.  There  are  also  other 
plots  made  use  of  by  the  writers  of  the  New  Comedy,  but 
the  one  just  described  is  the  most  usual.  The  plays  are 
interesting  less  on  account  of  strong  or  striking  characters 
than  by  reason  of  the  observation  of  every-day  life  dis- 
played and  the  natural  sequence  of  events,  to  which  must 
be  added  the  wit  and  humor  of  the  conversations.  In 
adapting  Greek  plays  the  Eoman  writers  frequently  com- 
bined scenes  from  two  or  possibly  more  dramas.  We  may 
therefore  assume  that  the  plays  of  the  New  Comedy  were  a 
little  simpler  than  those  of  Plautus  and  Terence. 

Many  poets  of  the  New  Comedy  are  known  to  us  by 
name,  but  so  little  is  known  of  them  that  most  of  them  can 
be  passed  over  in  silence.  Among  them  all,  two,  Philemon 
and  Menajuifir,  were  placed  above  the  rest  by  their  contem- 
poraries. 

Philemon  was  born  in  361  b.  c.  at  Soli,  in  Cilicia,  or, 

according  to  another  account,  at  Syracuse,  in  Sicily.     His 

first   comedy  appeared  at  Athens  about  330. 

He  is  said  to  have  passed  some  time  at  the 

court  of  Ptolemy  in  Egypt,  but  he  died  at  the  Piraeus,  where 

he  was  living  when  Antigonus  besieged  Athens  in  262.     He 

was  then  ninety-nine  years  old.     He  wrote  in  all  ninety  or 

ninety-seven  plays,  sixty  of  which  are  known  to  us  by  title 

and  by  some  fragments,  while  other  fragments  can  not  now 

be  ascribed  to  definite  plays.     He  was  the  chief  rival  of 

Menander,  and  even  gained  several  victories  over  him.     His 

plays   were  translated  or  adapted  by   the   Roman  writers 

Plautus  and  Caecilius,  and  among  the  Roman  plays  derived 

18 


264  GREEK  LITERATURE 

from  him  are  the  Mercator,  Trinummus,  and  Mostellaria  of 
Plautus.  He  seems  to  have  excelled  in  comic,  incidents 
and  in  humorous  speeches  rather  than  in  the  invention  of 
clearly  distinguished  and  carefully,  drawn  characters. 

Menander,  the  chief  of  the  New  Comedy,  was  born  at 
Athens  a  little  before  340  b.  c.     His  parents  were  wealthy 

people  of  the  Attic  deme  Cephisia,  named  Dio- 

peithes  and  Hegesistrata.  He  was  a  nephew  of 
the  comic  poet  Alexis,  from  whom  he  received  his  first  les- 
sons in  the  art  of  comic  composition,  while  his  philosophical 
views  are  said  to  have  been  derived  from  Theophrastus  and 
Epicurus.  His  first  play  was  performed  in  322  or  321  B.  c, 
about  a  year  after  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great.  The 
political  troubles  of  Greece  seem  not  to  have  aff ectgcLMenan- 
derVgaydisposition  nor  his  easy  and  careless  mode  of  life. 
Ptolemy  Soter  tried  to  induce  him  to  come  to  Alexandria, 
but  he  preferred  to  stay  at  Athens,  or  rather  the  Piraeus. 
He  was  a  handsome  man  and  careful  of  his  dress  and  appear- 
ance, but  a  diligent  author,  for  he  composed  one  hundred 
and  eight  comedies  in  about  thirty  years.  He  died  at 
Athens  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  about  292  b.  c.  After  his 
death  his  superiority  over  his  rivals  was  universally  con- 
ceded, but  he  is  said  to  have  gained  only  eight  victories, 
being  more  than  once  defeated  by  Philemon.  ,He  was, 
however,  conscious  of  his  own  superiority,  and  meeting 
Philemon  one  day  after  a  defeat  he  said,  "  Please,  Phile- 
mon, be  good  enough  to  tell  me,  when  you  win  a  victory 
over  me,  don't  you  blush  at  it  ?  " 

Menander's  works  are  known  to  us,  aside  from  Roman 
adaptations,1  by  numerous  fragments,  the  longest  of  which, 

from  the  Farmer,  was  first  published  in  1897 
woSss   6  from  a  papyrus  manuscript  in  Geneva.     The 

fragment  is  too  short  to  give  a  complete  idea 
of  the  plot,  but  it  is  evident  that  a  love-affair  between  a 

1  The  Bacchides,  St ichus,  and  perhaps  Pcenulus  of  Plautus  and 
the  Andria,  Adelphoe,  Eunuchus,  and  Ilautontimorumenos  of  Terence. 


COMEDY  AFTER  THE  FIFTH  CENTURY  265 

young  Athenian  and  a  girl  whom  he  has  known  at  Corinth 
is  an  important  part  of  it.  Arrangements  have  been  made 
in  the  young  man's  absence  for  his  marriage  with  his  half- 
sister,  which  puts  him  in  a  cruel  dilemma,  but  in  some  way 
an  accident  to  a  certain  Clesenetus  brings  about  a  change. 
The  accident  is  reported  to  a  woman  named  Myrrhine  by  a 
slave  named  Davus,  in  the  presence  of  another  woman, 

Philinna : 

{Enter  Davus,  from  the  country.) 

Dav.  No  one  tills  a  more  righteous  land  than  ours,  I  trow.  See, 
it  yields  of  its  own  accord  myrtle,  ivy,  laurel,  ...  all  these  flowers, 
and  if  you  sow  anything  else,  it  gives  a  just  and  fair  return,  not  in 
excess,  but  measure  for  measure.  Here,  Syrus,  take  into  the  house 
all  this  load  I  am  carrying.  It  is  all  for  the  wedding.  Good  day, 
Myrrhine  ! 

Myrrh.  Good  day ! 

Dav.  As  I  saw,  honourable  and  respected  lady,  how  you  stand,  I 
want  to  give  you  a  taste  of  some  good  news — or  rather  some  ap- 
proaching good  fortune  if  the  gods  will — and  to  be  the  first  bearer 
of  it.  Clesenetus,  on  whose  estate  your  boy  is  working,  while  dig- 
ging in  the  vineyard  the  other  day,  made  a  fine,  big  gash  in  his  leg. 

Myrrh.  Oh,  dear! 

Dav.  Courage,  and  hear  me  out.  When  the  old  man's  wound 
was  three  days  old  a  tumour  broke  out,  he  had  an  attack  of  fever, 
and  was  very  ill  indeed. 

Phil.  Oh,  confound  you  !  Is  that  the  good  news  you  have  come 
to  tell  us  ? 

Myrrh.  Hush,  mother ! 

Dav.  Then,  when  he  needed  a  friend's  care,  the  servants  and 
slaves  cried  with  one  accord,  "It  is  all  over  with  him.  We  can  do 
nothing  but  raise  a  long  lament."  But  your  son,  as  though  he 
thought  Clesenetus  was  his  own  father,  lifted  him  up,  anointed  him, 
rubbed  him,  washed  his  wound,  brought  him  food,  comforted  him 
about  the  serious  character  of  his  case,  indeed,  he  has  restored  him 
to  life  by  his  devotion.1 

Davus  goes  on  to  tell  how  the  old  man  became  interested 
in  the  boy's  affairs,  and  is  presently  coming  to  marry  some 

1  Translated  by  Grenfell  and  Hunt. 


266  GREEK  LITERATURE 

one  whom  he  speaks  of  as  "  the  girl."  The  fun  of  the 
scene  lies  chiefly  in  the  manner  of  the  announcement  of 
good  news  which  begins  with  the  tale  of  the  accident 
to  the  old  man.  Incidentally,  Dav.us  refers  ironically  to 
the  barrenness  of  Attic  farms,  which  produce  just  as  much 
as  one  sows  in  them,  but  no  more.  For  such  humor,  as 
well  as  for  delicate  character  drawing  and  well-conceived 
plots,  Merfcander  was  famous.  His  plays  contained  also 
many  remarK\of  a  sententious  or  philosophical  character, 
which  led  to  their  being  frequently  quoted.  So,  in  the 
Farmer,  we  read  :  > 

A  poor  man,  Gorgias,  is  despised,  even  though  what  he  says  is 
very  just ;  for  he  is  supposed  to  talk  for  this  thing  only,  gain ;  and 
a  man  with  a  seedy  coat  is  called  a  sycophant,  even  though  he  hap- 
pen to  have  been  wronged. 

A  contemporary  of  Menander  was  Diphilus  of  Sinope,  to 
whom  one  hundred  comedies  were  ascribed.     The  Casina 
of  Plautus  is  a  translation  of  one  of  these.     He 
continued  to  produce  travesties  of  mytholog- 
ical subjects,  and  in  general  seems  to  have  retained  some- 
thing of  the  character  of  the  Middle  Comedy. 

Apollodorus  of  Carystus  was  the  author  of  the  originals 

of  the  Phormio  and  the  Hecyra  of  Terence,  from  which  we 

gain  a  high  opinion  of  his  ability.     Posidippus 

Apollodorus.     of   Cassandrea,  in   Macedonia,  belongs  to  the 

Posidippus. 

early  part  of  the  third  century.  His  plays  are 
said  to  have  been  imitated  by  Koman  writers.  Through- 
out the  third  century,  and  even  later,  comedies  continued 
to  be  written  and  performed  at  Athens  and  elsewhere,  but 
none  of  them  enjoyed  any  lasting  reputation. 


CHAPTEK   XXIII 

EPIC  AND  LYRIC  POETRY  OP  THE  ATTIC  PERIOD 

Epic  poetry — Panyasis,  470  b.  c. — Antimachus,  404  b.  c. — Chcerilus 
of  Samos,  about  480-400  B.  c. — Elegiac  verse — Evenus  of  Paros,  born 
460  b.  c. — Critias,  about  415  b.  c. — Satirical  poems — Hegemon,  about  500 
B#  c. — Eubceus  of  Pariura,  about  325  b.  c. — Sophocles's  paean — Aristotle's 
Hymn  to  Virtue — Dithyrambs  and  nomes — Melanippides,  born  about 
520  b.  c. — Melanippides  the  younger,  about  460  b.  c. — Cinesias,  about 
420  b.  c— Phrynis  of  My tilene,  412  b.  c— Timotheus  of  Miletus,  447-357 
b.  c. — Philoxenus  of  Cy  thera,  435-380  b.  c. — Writers  of  occasional  poems. 

The  poetic  genius  of  the  Greeks  found  its  chief  expres- 
sion throughout  the  Attic  period  in  the  drama.  Neverthe- 
less, other  forms  of  poetry,  though  no  longer  of  the  greatest 

importance,  were  not  entirely  neglected.     The 

Other  kinds  .  ,    ,      .  „    , ,  .  .    ,  „ 

f  epic  and  lyric  poems  of  this  period  were  of 

little  merit  in  comparison  with  those  of  earlier 
times,  and  the  extant  fragments  are  relatively  few  and  brief. 
They  may  therefore  be  passed  over  with  a  few  brief  remarks. 
Panyasis  of  Halicarnassus,  son  of  Polyarchus,  and  per- 
haps the  uncle  or  cousin  of  Herodotus,  has  already  been  men- 
tioned (see  page  170).    He  was  a  contemporary  of  Sophocles, 
and  became  known  about  470  b.  c.  His  Heracleia 
told  all  the  deeds  of  Heracles  in  fourteen  books 
aggregating  nine  thousand  lines,  imitating  the  language  of 
the  old  Homeric  epics.     Antimachus,  born  at  Claros,  but 
afterward  a  citizen  of  Colophon,  was  at  the  height  of  his 
activity  at  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  in  404  B.  c. 
Following  the  example  of  Panyasis,  he  wrote  a  mythological 
epic  called  the    Theba'is,  which  was  much  admired.     He 

267 


268  GREEK  LITERATURE 

was  also  the  author  of  a  long  poem  in  elegiac  verse  entitled 
Lyde,  in  honor  of  his  deceased  wife,  Lyde.  This  poem 
was  full  of  mythology.  Antimachus  was  an  enthusiastic 
student  of  Homer  as  well  as  an  imitator  of  Homeric 
verse.  Choerilus  of  Samos  also  belongs  to  the  latter  part 
of  the  fifth  century,  though  his  birth  was  probably  be- 
fore 480  b.  c.  He  wrote  a  history  of  the  Persian  Wars 
in  hexameters.  In  404  b.  c.  he  was  at  Samos,  and  the 
Spartan  Lysander  paid  him  much  attention,  probably  wish- 
ing his  deeds  to  be  celebrated  in  an  epic,  a  wish  which  was 
not  gratified.  King  Archelaus  of  Macedon  soon  after  called 
him  to  his  court,  where  he  is  said  to  have  died. 

Elegiac  verse  was  written  by  almost  every  one  who  had 
any  literary  ability,  but  there  were  some  poets  whose  chief 
activity  was  as  writers  of  elegies.  Evenus  of  Paros,  born  in 
460  b.  c,  wrote  elegiac  verses  for  recitation  at 
iambics  and  banquets.  They  seem  to  have  been  graceful  and 
miscellaneous  pleasing  and  to  have  contained  moral  maxims 
poems.  an(j  proverbs.     He  died  early  in  the  third  cen- 

tury. Critias,  the  leader  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  composed 
elegies  under  the  title  of  Republics,  apparently  a  collection 
of  poems  on  various  subjects,  especially  the  habits  and  cus- 
toms of  the  Greeks.  He  also  wrote  some  occasional  poems. 
There  were  several  writers  of  satirical  poems  and  parodies, 
among  whom  Hermippus,  the  comic  poet,  should  be  men- 
tioned. Hegemon  of  Thasos,  a  contemporary  of  Cratinus, 
wrote  a  mock  epic,  called  the  Gigantomachia,  or  Battle  of 
the  Gods  and  Giants,  and  in  the  fourth  century  Euboeus  of 
Parium  wrote  parodies  of  Homer  which  seem  to  have  been 
especially  popular  in  Sicily.  The  cynic  philosopher  Crates 
of  Thebes,  whose  prime  was  about  325  B.  c,  wrote  satirical 
iambics  as  well  as  parodies  in  elegiac  and  hexameter  verse. 
Scolia,  paeans,  and  hymns  were  of  course  constantly  wanted 
and  constantly  supplied.  Sophocles  wrote  a  paean  to  Ascle- 
pius,  and  one  of  the  famous  hymns  of  the  fourth  century 
was  the  Hymn  to  Virtue,  written  about  345  B.  c.  by  the 


EPIC  AND  LYRIC  POETRY  OP  THE  ATTIC  PERIOD    269 

philosopher  Aristotle.  But  the  most  important  lyrics  of  this 
period  were  the  dithyrambs  and  nomes. 

Dithyrambic  performances  were  given  at  Athens  after 

the  development  of  the  drama  as  before,  but  the  music 

became   more  important   than   the  words,  the 

Dithyrambs     gound  than  the  genge>    Melanippides  the  elder, 

and  nomes.  x 

a  contemporary  of  Pindar,  born  at  Melos  about 

520  B.  c,  began  this  movement  by  substituting  musical 
interludes  for  the  antistrophes  of  the  dithyrambs.  His 
grandson  Melanippides  the  younger,  who  died  at  the  court 
of  the  Macedonian  king  Perdiccas  in  the  time  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War,  made  further  innovations.  Fragments  of 
his  Dana'ides,  Marsyas,  and  Persephone  are  preserved. 
Cinesias  of  Athens,  son  of  the  musician  Meles,  is  ridiculed 
by  Aristophanes  and  blamed  by  other  and  more  serious 
writers  for  innovations  in  the  dithyramb  which  tended  to 
make  its  words  less  important  than  the  music  and  dancing. 
The  nome  passed  through  changes  similar  to  those  of  the 
dithyramb.  The  chief  innovator  in  this  branch  was  Phry- 
nis  of  Mytilene,  who  won  the  prize  at  the  Panathenaic  fes- 
tival in  412  b.  c.  He  appears  to  have  made  changes  in 
music  and  perhaps  in  versification,  but  none  of  his  work  is 
preserved.  Timotheus  of  Miletus  was  born  in  447  and 
died  in  357  B.  c.  He  passed  from  city  to  city  competing  for 
the  prizes  of  poetry.  He  composed  nomes  for  lyre  accom- 
paniment, forming  eighteen  or  nineteen  books  aggregating 
eight  thousand  lines,  sixty-seven  prooemia,  twenty-one 
hymns,  eighteen  dithyrambs,  and  various  other  less  impor- 
tant poems.  His  nomes  were  especially  famous,  but  as  they 
were  sung  by  a  chorus,  they  probably  differed  little  from 
dithyrambs.  He  is  said  to  have  made  music  more  effemi- 
nate, but  the  same  thing  is  said  of  nearly  all  the  poets  of 
this  period,  and  we  can  not  tell  what  it  means.  His  great 
reputation  shows  that  his  poems  had  merits  which  the  ex- 
isting fragments,  without  the  musical  accompaniment,  do 
not  allow  us  to  appreciate.     The  same  may  be  said  of  his 


270  GREEK  LITERATURE 

chief  rival,  Philoxenus  of  Cythera,  who  was  born  in  435  and 
died  at  Ephesus  in  380  b.  c.  He  was  a  child  when  the  inhab- 
itants of  Cythera  were  reduced  to  slavery  by  the  Lacedae- 
monians, and  was  bought  first  by.  a  Lacedaemonian,  then 
by  the  Athenian  Melauippides,  from  whom  he  learned  the 
art  of  poetry.  In  the  height  of  his  fame  he  was  called  to 
Syracuse  by  Dionysius  the  elder,  but  was  for  some  reason 
obliged  to  flee  to  Tarentum,  where  he  wrote  the  Cyclops  to 
insult  the  tyrant.  He  composed  twenty-four  dithyrambs 
and  numerous  other  poems. 

Other  poets  of  the  Attic  period  were  Cydias,  Telestes, 
Polyidus,  and  Castorion.  To  these  should  be  added  the 
names  of  many  who  wrote  lyric  poetry  not  as  a  profession, 
but  in  the  intervals  of  other  occupations — such  are  Ti- 
mocreon  of  Rhodes,  Ion  of  Chios,  Diagoras  of  Melos,  Soph- 
ocles, Cercidas  of  Megalopolis,  and  Socrates,  and  the  list 
could  be  almost  indefinitely  extended.  But  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  that  poetry  in  all  its  forms  continued  to 
be  cultivated  throughout  the  Attic  period. 


.  CHAPTER   XXIV 

ATTIC   PROSE-THUCYDIDES 

Rhetoric — The  Slate  of  the  Athenians — Thucydides,  about  465  to 
about  400  b.  c. — His  life — His  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  War — His 
truth  and  accuracy — His  style  and  composition. 

The  fifth  century,  which  witnessed  the  development  of 
the  drama,  saw  also  the  rise  of  Attic  prose.  In  all  its 
Rhetorical  '  ' orms  this  was  much  influenced  by  oratory  and 
element  in  rhetoric,  so  that  it  may  almost  be  said  to  have 
Attic  prose,  developed  from  the  speeches  delivered  before 
the  popular  assembly  and  the  Heliastic  courts,  and  the 
earliest  great  work  of  Attic  prose,  the  history  of  Thucyd- 
ides, shows  on  every  page  the  influence  of  the  orator  and 
rhetorician  Antiphon ;  but  that  we  may  treat  each  branch 
of  prose  literature  consecutively,  it  may  be  best  to  post- 
pone the  discussion  of  Antiphon  until  after  the  historical 
and  philosophical  writings  of  the  Attic  period  have  been 
discussed. 

The  earliest  example  of  Attic  prose  is  apparently  an 
essay  on  The  State  of  the  Athenians,  preserved  among  the 
The  essay  on  writings  of  Xenophon,  but  certainly  not  by 
The  State  him.  Perhaps  it  is  the  work  of  Critias ;  cer- 
of  the  tainly  it  was  written  not  far  from   425  B.  c. 

Athenians,         rp^  gt^e  |fl  alrea(Jy  clear  an(J  lucid.      It  shows 

the  influence  of  rhetoric  in  the  balancing  of  sentences, 
but  it  also  reminds  one  of  the  Socratic  dialogues.  The 
writer  was  evidently  trained  in  public  speaking,  but  rather 
in  practical  pleading  than  in  theoretical  rhetoric.     He  was 

271 


272  GREEK  LITERATURE 

an  aristocrat,  and  criticizes  the  government   of   Athens 
with  great  severity  and  not  without  a  certain  dry  humor. 

The  great  prose  work  of  the  fifth  century  is  the  history 
of  the  Peloponnesian  War  by  Thucydides,  son  of  Olorus,  of 
the  Attic  deme  of  Halimus.  He  was  descended 
from  Olorus,  a  Thracian  chief,  whose  daughter, 
Hegesipyle,  was  the  wife  of  Miltiades,  and  in  addition  to 
this  distinguished  relationship  he  was  connected  with  the 
family  of  Pisistratus.  The  date  of  his  birth  is  unknown. 
He  says  at  the  beginning  of  his  work  : !  "  Thucydides,  an 
Athenian,  wrote  the  history  of  the  war  in  which  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians  and  the  Athenians  fought  against  one  another. 
He  began  to  write  when  they  first  took  up  arms,  believing 
that  it  would  be  great  and  memorable  above  any  previous 
war."  And  again  he  says,  speaking  of  the  war:2  "I  lived 
through  the  whole  of  it,  and  was  of  mature  years  and  judg- 
ment, and  I  took  great  pains  to  make  out  the  exact  truth." 
He  was  made  general  in  424  B.  c,  and  must  therefore  have 
been  at  least  thirty  years  old  at  that  time,  but  his  expres- 
sions about  himself  seem  to  imply  that  he  was  thirty  or 
forty  years  old  when  the  war  began.  His  birth  may  there- 
fore be  placed  between  470  and  460  B.  c.  The  date  of  his 
death  is  also  unknown,  but  he  lived  as  late  as  403  and  died 
before  396.  His  tomb  was  shown  in  the  family  burial 
place  of  Cimon.  The  following  details  of  his  life  are 
known :  In  430  or  429  he  was  attacked  by  the  plague ;  in 
424  he  was  made  general  and  put  in  command  of  the  fleet 
operating  on  the  coast  of  Thrace,  but  owing  to  his  fail- 
ure to  prevent  the  capture  of  Amphipolis  was  accused  of 
treason.  After  this  he  lived  in  banishment  until  he  was 
recalled  in  403,  spending  his  time  in  part  at  least  among 
the  Peloponnesians,  and  in  this  way  gathering  material  for 
his  history.  Whether  he  spent  any  considerable  part  of 
the  time  on  his  estates  at  Scapte  Hyle,  in  Thrace,  is  doubt- 
ful, as  that  region  was  under  Athenian  rule.     According 

1  I,  1 ;  Jowett's  translation.  2  V,  26;  Jowett's  translation. 


THUCYDIDES  273 

to  one  account  he  was  murdered  immediately  after  his  re- 
turn to  Athens,  while  another  authority  says  that  he  died 
in  Thrace. 

The  only  work  of  Thucydides  is  the  history  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  War,  and  that  was  never  completed,  but  breaks 
off  in  the  middle  of  the  year  411  B.  c,  although  it  is  evident 
that  some  parts  of  it  were  written  after  the  close  of  the 
war.  The  last  of  the  eight  books  into  which  the  work  was 
divided  by  the  Alexandrian  editors  is  evidently 
.  .  °r^  not  finished,  and  some  other  parts  of  the  work, 
especially  in  the  fifth  book,  never  received  the 
last  careful  revision  of  the  author,  who  must  have  died  in 
the  midst  of  his  labors.  No  part  of  the  work  was  finished 
and  published  before  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  but 
Thucydides  collected  his  material  as  promptly  as  possible, 
and  worked  much  of  it  up  into  a  connected  narrative  long 
before  the  war  was  over,  leaving  only  the  final  revision  to 
be  made  after  the  close  of  the  war,  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  work  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  received  this  final  re- 
vision. How  much  material  for  the  history  of  the  last  years 
of  the  war  had  been  collected  when  Thucydides  died  we  do 
not  know. 

Thucydides  differs  from  his  predecessors  in  the  choice 
of  his  subject,  for  he  is  the  first  historian  to  write  the  his- 
tory of  events  which  he  himself  has  seen.  In 
onheMstory"  a  brief  introduction  (Book  I,  1-21)  he  tells  of 
the  early  history  of  Greece,  partly  to  show  why 
the  Peloponnesian  War  seems  to  him  most  important ;  he 
gives  (Book  I,  89-118)  an  admirable  account  of  the  history 
of  Athens  during  the  fifty  years  since  the  Persian  wars, 
which  is  necessary  as  an  explanation  of  the  causes  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War ;  he  describes  the  realm  of  the  Odrysians 
in  Thrace  (Book  II,  96-101) ;  and  makes  us  acquainted 
with  the  position  and  previous  history  of  Sicily  (Book  VI, 
1-5) ;  but  these  can  hardly  be  called  digressions,  as  they 
are  necessary  for  the  proper  understanding  of  the  history. 


274  GREEK   LITERATURE 

Almost  the  only  real  digression  in  the  entire  work  is  a  crit- 
icism of  the  accounts  of  the  murder  of  Hipparchus  by 
Harmodius  and  Aristogiton  given  by  his  predecessors  (Book 
VI,  54-57).  His  work  is  a  history  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War,  paying  little  attention  to  anything  except  military 
events  and  such  political  matters  as  affected  the  course  of 
the  war.  The  events  of  the  war  are  narrated  in  chrono- 
logical order,  each  year  being  divided  into  winter  and  sum- 
mer. Thucydides  set  himself  a  definite  task,  and  from  this 
he  was  not  to  be  diverted.  In  opposition  to  Herodotus  and 
his  other  predecessors,  who  had  written  histories  of  myth- 
ical times  or  distant  peoples,  or  had  enlivened  their  works 
by  inserting  digressions  and  tales  of  all  sorts,  Thucydides 
composed  his  work  to  be  "  an  everlasting  possession,  not  a 
prize  composition  which  is  heard  and  forgotten."  His  crit- 
ical insight  is  remarkable,  and  his  impartiality  wonderful. 
We  feel,  to  be  sure,  that  he  is  an  Athenian,  and  generally 
sympathizes  with  Athens,  but  we  feel  also  that  his  state- 
ments of  fact  are  not  affected  by  his  sympathies. 

Truth  and  accuracy  were  the  main  objects  sought  by 
Thucydides,  and  he  spared  no  pains  to  attain  them : 

Of  the  events  of  the  war  I  have  not  ventured  to  speak  from  any 
chance  information,  nor  according  to  any  notion  of  my  own ;  I  have 

described  nothing  but  what  I  either  saw  myself,  or 
Truth  and         learned  from  others,  of  whom  I  made  the  most  careful 

and  particular  enquiry.  The  task  was  a  laborious  one, 
because  eye-witnesses  of  the  same  occurrences  gave  different  accounts 
of  them,  as  they  remembered  or  were  interested  in  the  actions  of  one 
side  or  the  other.  And  very  likely  the  strictly  historical  character 
of  my  narrative  may  be  disappointing  to  the  ear.  But  if  he  who 
desires  to  have  before  his  eyes  a  true  picture  of  the  events  which 
have  happened,  and  of  the  like  events  which  may  be  expected  to 
happen  hereafter  in  the  order  of  human  things,  shall  pronounce  what 
I  have  written  to  be  useful,  then  I  shall  be  satisfied.  My  history  is 
an  everlasting  possession,  not  a  prize  composition  which  is  heard  and 
forgotten.1 

1  I,  22 ;  Jowett's  translation. 


THUCYDIDES  275 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  truth  and  good  faith 
of  the  author  of  these  words.  He  may  have  made  mis- 
takes, but  if  he  did  so  it  was  not  through  carelessness  nor 
dishonesty,  but  because  accurate  information  was  not  to 
be  had.  Yet  he  was  not  contented  with  the  mere  collec. 
tion  and  arrangement  of  material.  His  work 
r  is  ic  pur-     wag  ^0  fre  a  Work  of  literary  art.     Hence  it 

pose.  - — ■ — * — 

is  that  we  find  a  careful  balancing  of  phrases 

one  against  another,  and  a  minute  care  in  the  distribution 
of  emphasis,  which  seems  to  us  sometimes  to  interfere 
with  the  straightforward  simplicity  of  the  narrative  style ; 
hence  comes  the  choice  of  words  and  forms  certainly  not 
usual  in  the  Attic  speech  of  the  time,  as  well  as  the  care- 
ful distinctions  between  synonyms.  In  all  these  matters 
Thucydides  shows  that  he  had  been  trained  in  the  school 
of  the  rhetoricians  Gorgias,  Antiphon,  and  Prodicus,  and 
also  that  their  training  fitted  in  with  his  natural  mode 
of  thought.  Even  without  literary  training,  Thucydides 
would  have  expressed  himself  tersely  and  pointedly,  bring- 
ing certain  words  into  high  relief  by  opposing  them  to  cer- 
tain other  words,  and  the  training  he  had  received  only 
strengthened  his  natural  tendency. 

The  style  of  Thucydides  is,  in  the  parts  of  his  work 
which  were  finished  before  his  death,  the  powerful  and  ex- 
pressive style  natural  to  a  man  of  his  serious 

1  and  vigorous  mind,  but  at  the  same  time  it  is 
composition.  »■»■%-»  -.    •  -i  •  i      i 

consciously  elaborated  in  accordance  with  the 

teachings  in  vogue  at  Athens  about  the  time  when  banish- 
ment removed  the  great  historian  from  contact  with  the 
intellectual  life  of  his  native  city.  As  a  rule  he  is  clear 
and  concise,  but  sometimes  the  pressure  of  ideas  involves 
him  in  a  long  and  obscure  sentence,  and  sometimes  the 
desire  for  brevity  causes  him  to  condense  into  one  phrase 
thoughts  which  could  be  more  clearly  expressed  in  two, 
and  even  to  transgress  the  ordinary  rules  of  grammar. 
Some  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  style  as  we  find  it  in  our 


276  GREEK  LITERATURE 

editions  may  be  due  to  the  mistakes  of  copyists,  for  our 
manuscripts  contain  many  errors,  but  such  mistakes  can 
account  for  only  a  small  proportion  of  them.  A  clear  and 
vigorous  thinker,  impressed  with  the  importance  of  his 
subject  and  eager  to  3xtend  his  own  feeling  to  his  readers, 
Thucydides  is,  in  spite  of  his  rhetorical  training,  a  pioneer 
in  the  composition  of  Attic  prose,  and  as  such  he  is  defi- 
cient in  the  smoothness  and  charm  which  distinguish  his 
successors,  but  in  dignity  and  power  of  expression  he  js 
unsurpassed.  His  evident  influence  upon  Demosthenes, 
the  greatest  of  ancient  orators,  is  a  sufficient  indication  of 
his  power  as  a  writer. 

Like  Herodotus,  Thucydides  inserts  speeches  in  his 
narrative,  but  these  are  not,  as  are  those  of  Herodotus, 
The  speeches  mere  inventions  inserted  to  add  liveliness  to 
in  Thucyd-  the  story,  like  the  speeches  of  the  Homeric 
ides-  heroes.     Thucydides  says  : 

As  to  the  speeches,  which  were  made  either  before  or  during  the 
war,  it  was  hard  for  me,  and  for  others  who  reported  them  to  me, 
to  recollect  the  exact  words.  I  have  therefore  put  into  the  mouth 
of  each  speaker  the  sentiments  proper  to  the  occasion,  expressed  as 
I  thought  he  would  be  likely  to  express  them,  while  at  the  same 
time  I  endeavoured,  as  nearly  as  I  could,  to  give  the  general  purport 
of  what  was  actually  said.1 

These  speeches  are  among  the  most  brilliant  parts  of 
the  whole  work.  In  them  is  summed  up  briefly  and  vividly 
the  entire  case  for  or  against  the  line  of  conduct  pursued 
by  one  of  the  Greek  states,  or  the  feelings  of  an  entire 
population  are  expressed  through  the  mouth  of  some  one 
speaker.  The  masterly  treatment  of  Thucydides  makes 
them  not  mere  adornments,  but  explanations  of  the  narra- 
tive, by  means  of  which  the  causes  of  public  acts  and  events 
are  understood.  In  the  hands  of  later  writers,  speeches 
inserted  in  historical  narrative  tend  to  obscure  the  facts, 

1 1,  22 ;  Jowett's  translation. 


THUCYDIDBS  277 

but  the  speeches  of  Thucydides  add  at  once  to  the  inter- 
est and  the  clearness  of  the  story.  Aside  from  the 
speeches,  the  only  interruptions  in  the  narrative  are  docu- 
ments, such  as  treaties,  and  dialogues  between  Melians  and 
the  Athenians,1  Archidamus  and  the  Platseans,2  and  the 
Ambraciot  herald  and  the  soldiers  of  Demosthenes.3  The 
documents  are  copied  from  official  records  and  do  not 
affect  our  estimate  of  Thucydides  as  author  or  historian, 
except  in  so  far  as  they  put  before  us  some  of  the  material 
he  employed.  The  dialogues  belong  substantially  in  the 
same  category  as  the  speeches,  serving  to  explain  the  cir- 
cumstances and  the  state  of  mind  which  led  to  the  subse- 
quent actions. 

Thucydides  is  a  realist  and  describes  things  as  accu- 
rately as  he  can,  giving  little  or  no  play  to  his  fancy.  He 
is,  like  others  of  his  time,  interested  in  human  character, 
and  pauses  occasionally  to  give  his  estimate  of  the  qualities 
of  one  or  another  of  the  prominent  men  whom  he  men- 
tions. His  personal  judgments,  however,  are  given  only 
when  they  are  necessary — that  is,  when  the  facts  he  has 
narrated  do  not  bring  the  characters  of  the  men  clearly 
before  the  reader.  So,  for  instance,  after  he  has  told  how 
the  Athenian  expedition  to  Sicily  failed  in  utter  ruin, 
owing  in  great  measure  to  the  defects  of  the  general-in- 
chief  Nicias,  and  how  Mcias  himself  was  put  to  death,  he 
adds  :  "  Of  all  the  Greeks  of  my  time  he  least  deserved  to 
meet  with  so  miserable  an  end,  for  he  lived  in  the  constant 
performance  of  what  was  considered  virtue."4  This  we 
should  not  have  known  from  the  narrative,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary if  we  are  to  judge  Nicias  correctly. 

Thucydides  is  the  greatest  of  Greek  historians.  No 
other  ever  collected  facts  with  so  much  care,  and  no  other 
ever  recounted  them  with  so  much  power.  That  his  sym- 
pathies are  with  Athens  is  evident,  as  are  his  aristocratic 

1  V,  85-113.  2 II,  71-74.  3  III,  113.  «  VII,  86. 


278  GREEK  LITERATURE 

feelings  and  his  admiration  for  Pericles,  inconsistent  as 
these  sentiments  may  seem  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
politics  of  the  day ;  but  no  feelings  of  his  own  are  allowed 
to  interfere  with  the  impartiality  of  his  history.  Himself 
a  practical  soldier,  he  describes  military  movements  with 
remarkable  accuracy,  failing  only  in  matters  of  topography, 
in  which  accuracy  is  hard  to  attain.  Eapid  and  concise  in 
narrative,  accurate  and  clear  in  description,  profound  and 
logical  in  his  exposition  of  causes,  brilliant  and  vigorous  in 
his  rhetoric,  devoted  with  all  the  power  of  a  sincere  and 
critical  mind  to  the  discovery  of  truth,  Thucydides  is  at 
once  the  originator  of  the  philosophy  of  history  and  the 
greatest  of  Greek  historians.  Although  his  style  lacks  the 
smoothness  that  appealed  to  most  readers  in  the  fourth 
century,  his  work  was  edited  and  commented  on  by  the 
Alexandrine  critics,  he  was  justly  admired  in  the  days  of  the 
Eoman  Empire,  and  has  been  still  more  highly  appreciated 
in  modern  times.  Except  in  matters  of  detail,  the  criti- 
cisms which  some  scholars  have  directed  against  him  have 
ended  in  establishing  his  reputation  more  firmly  than  ever. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

XENOPHON    AND   OTHER   HISTORIANS 

Xenophon,  about  430  to  about  354  b.  c. — His  life  and  works — His 
literary  qualities — Philistus,  about  430-356  b.  c. — Ephorus,  first  half  of 
the  fourth  century  to  about  320  b.  c. — Theopompus,  about  380-(f) — 
Writers  of  Atthides— Philochorus,  about  306-260  b.  c— iEneas  Tacticus, 
about  350  b.  c. 

Xenophon,  who  has  sometimes  been  classed  among  the 
philosophers  as  well  as  among  the  historians,  but  who  is 
rather  to  be  regarded  as  an  essayist,  is  better 
known  to  us  as  a  man  than  almost  any  other 
Greek  writer.  He  was  the  son  of  Gryllus  and  Diodora 
and  belonged  to  a  well-to-do  family  of  the  Attic  deme  of 
Erchia.  A  story  that  Socrates  saved  his  life  at  the  battle 
of  Delium  in  424  B.  c,  which  has  caused  some  scholars  to 
think  that  he  was  born  about  445  b.  c,  is  undoubtedly  a  fic- 
tion. Xenophon  himself  (Anabasis,  III,  1)  says  that  in  401 
B.  c.  he  hesitated  because  of  his  youth  to  assume  the  com- 
mand of  the  Greeks  whose  generals  had  been  murdered  by 
the  Persians.  We  happen  to  know  that  one  of  the  murdered 
generals  was  only  thirty  years  old,  from  which  it  appears 
that  Xenophon  can  hardly  have  been  older.  Elsewhere, 
too,  he  speaks  of  his  youth.  We  may  therefore  assume 
that  he  was  born  not  far  from  430  b.  c.  He  received  a 
good  education  and  became  at  an  early  age  a  follower  of 
Socrates,  whose  influence  lasted  throughout  his  life.  In  401 
b.  c.  the  young  Persian  prince  Cyrus  was  preparing  an  expe- 
dition to  dethrone  his  elder  brother,  Artaxerxes  II,  and  was 
19  '  279 


280  GREEK  LITERATURE 

gathering  a  force  of  over  ten  thousand  Greek  mercenaries. 
Xenophon,  at  that  time  a  young  man  eager  for  adventure 
and  experience,  accepted  the  invitation  of  his  friend  Prox- 
enus,  a  Boeotian,  to  join  the  expedition  as  an  independent 
volunteer,  neither  officer  nor  private  soldier. 

The  story  of  this  expedition  is  told  by  Xenophon  in  the 
Anabasis,  in  seven  books.  The  title  means  March  up  from 
•  *ne  seacoas^  t°  the  interior,  but  after  the  second 
book  the  work  describes  the  retreat  of  the  ten 
thousand  Greeks  from  the  heart  of  the  Persian  Empire  to 
the  coast,  for  Cyrus  was  killed  in  September,  401  b.  c,  in  a 
battle  at  Cunaxa,  near  Babylon,  and  the  Greeks,  deserted 
by  their  allies,  were  left,  a  little  band  of  ten  thousand  in 
the  midst  of  a  vast  empire  of  enemies,  and  were  obliged  to 
force  their  way  to  the  sea.  Five  of  the  Greek  leaders  were 
treacherously  murdered  soon  after  the  death  of  Cyrus,  and 
the  Greeks  were  in  the  greatest  danger.  Then  Xenophon, 
moved  by  a  dream,  called  the  remaining  leaders  together 
and  encouraged  them  by  a  practical  and  courageous  speech. 
New  generals  were  chosen,  Xenophon  among  them,  and 
the  next  day  the  retreat  began.  Followed  and  harassed 
by  the  Persian  troops,  the  Greeks  marched  up  the  course 
of  the  Tigris  into  the  country  of  the  Carduchi  (Kurds), 
warlike  highlanders,  who  opposed  their  passage  by  roll- 
ing stones  down  upon  them  as  they  struggled  through  the 
mountain  passes,  then  forced  their  way  through  Armenia, 
until  at  last,  in  February,  400  B.  c,  after  some  five  months 
of  constant  marching  and  fighting,  they  saw  before  them 
the  waters  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  with  the  glad  shout, 
"  The  sea !  the  sea ! "  burst  into  tears  of  joy,  for  now  they 
knew  that  nothing  could  keep  them  from  their  native  land 
and  kindred.  Against  the  will  of  the  Persians,  a  small 
force  of  Greeks  had  marched  for  months  through  Persian 
territory,  showing  how  vastly  superior  they  were  to  the 
Asiatics,  and  how  weak  the  Persian  Empire  really  was.  In 
two  days  the  Greeks  reached  Trapezus,  a  Greek  colony, 


XENOPHON  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS  281 

and  sacrificed  thank-offerings  to  Zeus  the  Preserver  and 
Heracles  the  Guide.  From  Trapezus,  Xenophon  led  his 
force,  still  8,600  strong,  to  Byzantium,  and  thence,  after  a 
service  of  two  months  under  the  Thracian  prince  Seuthes, 
to  Pergamum,  in  the  Troad,  where  they  joined  the  army  of 
the  Lacedaemonian  Thimbron,  who  was  fighting  against  the 
Persian  satraps  Tissaphernes  and  Pharnabazus. 

There  Xenophon  left  them  and  returned  to  Greece, 
probably  to  Athens  ;  but  soon  his  adventurous  spirit  sent 
him  to  the  field  again,  and  in  396  B.  c.  he  joined 
the  army  of  King  Agesilaus  of  Sparta,  who 
was  put  in  charge  of  the  war  against  the  Persians.  When 
Agesilaus  was  recalled  to  Greece  by  the  alliance  of  Thebes 
and  Athens  against  Sparta,  Xenophon  accompanied  him, 
and  was  present  at  the  battle  of  Coronea  in  394  b.  c.  Im- 
mediately after  this,  if  not  before,  he  was  banished  from 
Athens,  and  went  to  live  at  Scillus,  near  Olympia,  in  the 
territory  of  Elis,  on  an  estate  given  him  by  the  Spartans. 
Here  he  lived  as  a  rich  country  gentleman,  with  his  wife, 
Philesia,  and  his  sons,  Gryllus  and  Diodorus,  passing  his 
time  in  hunting,  entertaining  his  friends,  and  writing.  His 
estate  was  large,  containing  woods,  in  which  he  hunted 
with  his  friends  and  neighbors,  and  beside  a  little  stream 
was  a  temple  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  which  he  had  built 
and  maintained  in  performance  of  a  vow.  All  this  he  him- 
self describes  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Anabasis  (V,  3,  8- 
13).  In  371  Scillus  was  ravaged  by  the  Eleans,  then  at  war 
with  the  Spartans,  and  Xenophon  withdrew  to  Corinth.  At 
some  time,  probably  in  365,  the  decree  of  banishment  against 
him  was  rescinded,  and  he  probably  returned  to  Athens. 
In  362  his  sons,  Diodorus  and  Gryllus,  were  among  the 
Athenian  cavalry  at  the  battle  of  Mantinea,  and  Gryllus 
was  killed  fighting  bravely.  The  date  of  Xenophon's  death 
is  unknown,  but  it  was  probably  about  354  B.  c. 

The  Anabasis  was  first  published  under  the  name  of 
Themistogenes,  a   Syracusan,  and  appears  to  have  been 


282  GREEK  LITERATURE 

written  in  part  to  show  that  Xenophon  was  the  real  hero 
of  the  retreat  of  the  ten  thousand.  It  seems  that  at  least 
one  other  account  of  the  matter  existed  in  which  Xenophon 
did  not  figure  prominently,  and  it'  was  to  correct  this  ac- 
count for  his  own  benefit  that  he  wrote  the  Anabasis. 
The  purpose  Naturally,  such  a  work  would  carry  more  con- 
ofthe  viction  if    it  appeared  under  another  name. 

Anabasis.  Apparently,  however,  nobody  was  deceived,  for 
the  Anabasis  was  known  through  all  antiquity  as  Xeno- 
phon's  work.  Books  I  and  II  are  merely  diaries  of  the 
events  of  the  march,  ending  with  the  account  of  the  battle 
of  Cunaxa,  the  situation  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  murder  of 
the  generals,  with  brief  and  pointed  descriptions  of  the 
characters  of  the  murdered  men.  After  this  point  Xeno- 
phon himself  becomes  prominent,  and  continues  to  occupy 
the  foreground  in  the  narrative.  It  may  be,  therefore,  that 
the  first  two  books  were  written  before  the  others,  and  be- 
fore Xenophon  thought  it  necessary  to  defend  his  repu- 
tation. 

Besides  the  Anabasis,  Xenophon's  chief  historical  work 
is  the  Hellenica,  a  history  of  Greece  in  seven  books,  begin- 
ning at  the  point  where  the  narrative  of  Thucyd- 
_  J.    .  ides  breaks  off,  after  the  battle  of  Cynossema 

in  411,  and  ending  with  the  battle  of  Man  tinea 
in  362  B.  c.  The  opening  words  are :  "  But  after  this,  not 
many  days  later,  Thymochares  came  from  Athens  with  a 
few  ships,  and  the  Lacedaemonians  and  Athenians  fought 
another  naval  battle,  and  the  Lacedaemonians  were  victori- 
ous under  the  leadership  of  Agesandrides."  The  work  is 
evidently  closely  attached  to  that  of  Thucydides  as  a  con- 
tinuation. Through  the  first  two  books  something  of  the 
style  of  Thucydides  is  preserved,  though  without  his  bril- 
liancy and  vigor,  and  the  tone  of  impartiality  so  noticeable 
in  Thucydides  is  also  to  be  observed  here ;  but  the  remain- 
ing five  books  are  written  in  a  less  accurate  and  simple 
style,  and  show  constantly  the  author's  strong  prejudice  in 


XENOPHON  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS  283 

favor  of  the  Spartans  and  his  excessive  admiration  of  Ages- 
ilaus,  feelings  which  cause  him  to  do  scant  justice  to 
other  peoples  and  other  leaders,  and  even  to  give  little 
prominence  to  Epaminondas,  the  real  hero  of  this  period. 
So  he  tells  of  the  revolution  at  Thebes  without  mentioning 
Pelopidas,  and  in  his  account  of  the  first  invasion  of  the 
Peloponnesus  by  the  Thebans  he  does  not  speak  of  the 
founding  of  Megalopolis  and  the  restoration  of  Messene  by 
Epaminondas.  These  differences  between  the  first  two 
books  and  the  rest  make  it  probable  that  the  former,  which 
continue  the  history  of  Thucydides  to  the  end  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  in  403  B.  c,  were  written  by  Xeno- 
phon  with  the  aid  of  the  notes  and  other  material  left  by 
Thucydides,  and  were  composed  not  far  from  400  b.  c,  either 
before  Xenophon  joined  the  expedition  of  Cyrus  or  in  the 
interval  between  his  return  from  that  adventure  and  his 
second  departure  for  Asia.  The  remaining  books  were 
written  at  Scillus  and  after  he  was  driven  away  from  there. 
The  Hellenica  is  our  only  connected  account  of  Greek  his- 
tory between  411  and  362  b.  c,  and  is  therefore  valuable. 
As  a  work  of  literature,  however,  it  is  not  interesting, 
for  the  style  is  rather  dull,  and  the  speeches  and  dia- 
logues introduced  in  imitation  of  Thucydides  are  some- 
times prosy. 

The  Agesilaus  is  a  pamphlet  in  praise  of  Agesilaus,  writ- 
ten after  his  death  in  361  b.  c.     "  I  know,"  it  begins,  "  that 
it  is  not  easy  to  write  praise  worthy  of  the  ex- 
T~J  .  cellence  and  reputation  of  Agesilaus,  but,  nev- 

ertheless, I  must  try.  For  it  would  not  be  well 
if  because  a  man  was  perfectly  excellent  he  should  on  that 
account  not  obtain  even  inferior  praises."  The  deeds  of 
Agesilaus  are  recounted,  and  for  that  reason  this  work  is 
often  classed  as  historical.  It  is,  however,  rather  a  lauda- 
tory essay  than  history.  The  praise  is  somewhat  overdone, 
and  the  style  is  high-flown,  though  smooth.  Several  pas- 
sages of  the  Hellenica  appear  also  in  the  Agesilaus,  which 


284  GREEK  LITERATURE 

may  indicate  that  the  Hellenica  had  not  yet  appeared  when 
the  Agesilaus  was  published. 

The  Cyropcedia,  or  "  Education  of  Cyrus,"  is  not  so  much 
history  as  a  description  of  an  ideal  monarchy.  It  describes 
in  eight  books  the  education,  life,  and  charac- 
ter aedi  *er  °*  Cyrus  the  Elder,  the  founder  of  the  Per- 
sian Empire,  and  ends  with  his  dying  advice  to 
his  sons  and  counselors.  Cyrus  is  represented  not  as  the 
real  Cyrus  was,  but  as  Xenophon  thought  a  king  ought  to 
be,  a  wise,  self-restrained,  brave,  and  moderate  man,  with 
the  moral  and  ethical  principles  of  Socrates  joined  to  the 
personal  qualities  of  Xenophon's  favorite  hero,  Agesilaus, 
and  with  some  traits  drawn  from  the  younger  Cyrus,  whom 
Xenophon  had  known  in  401  B.  c.  In  like  manner  the  de- 
scription of  Persian  customs,  though  based  upon  what  the 
Greeks  really  knew  of  them,  is  imaginary  in  its  details, 
many  of  which  are  derived  from  the  Spartan  institutions 
which  Xenophon  admired.  Many  anecdotes  are  inserted  in 
the  work,  some  of  which,  like  the  following,  show  the  strong 
influence  of  Socrates : 

A  big  boy  who  had  a  small  tunic  stripped  a  little  boy  who  had  a 
large  tunic,  put  upon  him  his  own  small  tunic  and  clothed  himself 
in  the  large  one.  Now  I,  acting  as  judge  between  them,  decided 
that  it  was  better  for  both  that  each  have  the  tunic  that  fitted  him. 
Hereupon  the  teacher  flogged  me,  saying  that  when  I  was  judge  of 
what  fitted,  I  ought  to  do  as  I  had  done,  but  when  I  had  to  judge 
whose  the  tunic  was,  he  said  this  was  the  point  I  ought  to  regard, 
what  was  just  possession ;  whether  one  who  has  taken  a  thing  by  force 
should  keep  it,  or  he  should  possess  it  who  made  or  bought  it ;  and 
since,  he  said,  that  which  is  lawful  is  just,  but  that  which  is  unlaw- 
ful is  violent,  he  ordained  that  the  judge  should  always  cast  his  vote 
according  to  law.1 

The  story  of  the  Assyrian  prince  Abradates  and  his 
beautiful  wife,  Panthea,  who  urged  him  to  be  faithful  to 
Cyrus,  sent  him  forth  to  battle  clad  in  splendid  armor  which 

1  1.  Cyrop.,  i,  3,  17. 


XENOPHON  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS  285 

she  herself  had  given  him,  and  after  his  death  in  battle 
killed  herself  upon  his  body,  is  beautiful  in  itself  and 
remarkable  as  the  first  love  story  in  any  European  lan- 
guage. 

The  Memorabilia,  or  "  Kecollections  of  Socrates,"  in  four 
books,  was  written  to  defend  Socrates  against  the  accusa- 
tion of  impiety  or  immorality,  and  at  the  same 

__ e  ....  time  to  record  the  impression  made  by  him 
Memorabilia.  1.1 

upon  Xenophon,  apparently  with  the  purpose 

of  showing  that  Plato's  representation  of  the  master  was 
not  correct  at  all  points.  The  Socrates  of  Xenophon  is  less 
delicate  in  his  irony  than  the  Socrates  of  Plato,  and  the 
anecdotes  told  of  him  are  chiefly  concerned  with  his  views 
and  advice  on  practical  matters.  Xenophon  evidently  ap- 
preciated Socrates  as  a  practical  adviser  rather  than  as  a 
philosopher,  and  it  is  this  which  gives  the  work  its  chief 
interest,  for  it  shows  Socrates  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
practical  man. 

The  Apology,  or  "  Defense  of  Socrates  at  his  Trial,"  is 
supposed  by  some  scholars  to  be  a  late  work,  not  by  Xeno- 

_    ,    .  phon,  but  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  its 

The  Apology.     *        \ 

genuineness.     It  was  probably  intended  as  a 

sort  of  sequel  to  the  Memorabilia.  It  is  a  short  essay,  giv- 
ing the  substance  of  the  speech  of  Socrates,  with  interrup- 
tions by  the  audience  and  short  dialogues  with  Meletus,  the 
chief  accuser,  and  laying  special  stress  upon  the  feeling  of 
Socrates  that  death  was  for  him  a  blessing,  not  an  evil. 

The  Symposium,  or  "  Banquet,"  describes  a  feast  given 
by  Callias  in  honor  of  Autolycus,  who  has  just  won  a  vic- 
tory at  the  Panathenaic  festival.  Socrates  pro- 
Svmposium  Poses  that  each  guest  shall  speak  in  praise  of 
the  art  he  practises,  and  the  most  important 
part  of  the  whole  consists  of  a  discourse  by  Socrates  on 
love  ;  but  the  other  discourses  are  interesting,  and  the  whole 
essay  is  pleasing,  though  greatly  inferior  to  Plato's  work  of 
the  same  name. 


286  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The  (Economicus,  or  essay  "  On  Domestic  Economy," 
also  lias  Socrates  as  the  central  character.     He  tells  how 
an  Athenian  husband,  called  Ischomachus,  de- 
The  scribed  to  him  the  proper  way  to  manage  his 

family  and  estate.  He  tells  how  he  educated 
his  young  wife  in  housekeeping  and  in  character,  and  how 
he  treated  his  slaves.  The  work  is  attractive,  and  gives  us 
a  high  opinion  of  Xenophon  as  a  husband  and  master,  for 
Ischomachus  is  evidently  Xenophon's  ideal  head  of  a  house- 
hold. 

Other  works  of  Xenophon  are  the  Hiero,  an  imaginary 
conversation  between  Hiero  II,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  and  the 
poet  Simonides,  in  which  Hiero  praises  the  ad- 
vantages of  private  life  and  Simonides  describes 
the  good  a  ruler  can  do ;  The  State  of  the  Lacedaemonians, 
a  description  of  the  Lacedaemonian  constitution,  praising 
especially  the  military  training  of  the  citizens  by  the  state ; 
The  Revenues,  dealing  with  the  revenues  of  Athens,  and 
showing  how  they  may  be  increased  by  bringing  in  greater 
numbers  of  resident  aliens  to  pay  taxes,  and  by  working 
the  silver  mines  of  Laurium  more  effectively ;  On  Horse- 
manship, an  interesting  essay,  telling  about  the  choice  and 
care  of  horses,  the  methods  of  hardening  their  feet  (for  the 
Greeks  used  no  horseshoes),  and  the  art  of  mounting  and 
riding ;  The  Hipparchicus,  a  book  of  advice  to  cavalry 
officers,  telling  how  to  secure  good  discipline  in  the  troop, 
either  for  war  or  for  show  in  processions ;  and  On  Hunting, 
telling  about  hunting  nets,  the  breeds  and  the  care  of  dogs, 
and  various  kinds  of  hunting,  and  describing  in  especial 
detail  the  hunting  of  hares  with  dogs. 

Xenophon  is  neither  a  historian  nor  a  philosopher,  but 
rather  an  essayist,  the  first  of  his  kind.  In  character  he 
was  simple  and  honest,  with  a  thorough  appreciation  of  his 
own  good  qualities,  but  too  straightforward  and  honorable 
to  be  disagreeably  conceited.  His  language  is  Attic,  though 
he  uses  some  expressions  not  found  in  the  works  of  other 


XENOPHON  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS  287 

Attic  writers.  These  expressions  may  have  been  adopted 
during  his  long  absence  from  Attica,  or  they  may  be  retained 
from  his  early  days  in  the  country;  for  Xenophon  was 
brought  up  in  the  country,  though  in  Attica,  and  did  not 
as  a  child  learn  the  latest  forms  of  city  speech.  His  style 
is  generally  smooth,  clear,  and  plain,  but  it  lacks  vigor  and 
variety.  His  writings  are  interesting,  but  one  does  not  care 
to  read  them  continuously.  In  short,  Xenophon  is  not  a 
great  genius,  but  a  good  example  of  a  cultivated,  practical 
Athenian  gentleman,  and  his  writings  are  what  we  might 
expect  from  such  a  person.  All  his  works  have  come  down 
to  us,  and  are  interesting  collectively  because  they  show 
the  range  of  his  interests  as  well  as  his  intellectual  and 
moral  qualities. 

Three  other  historians  of  this  period  deserve  mention, 
though  their  works  have  been  lost,  for  later  writers  refer  to 
them  and  repeat  their  statements.  The  least 
important  of  these  is  Philistus  of  Syracuse. 
He  was  born  not  far  from  430  b.  c,  of  a  wealthy  family,  and 
used  his  wealth  to  aid  Dionysius  I  in  establishing  his  power 
at  Syracuse  in  405.  In  385  he  was  exiled  because  his  mar- 
riage did  not  please  the  tyrant,  and  went  to  Magna  Graecia, 
where  he  wrote  most  of  his  works.  After  he  was  recalled 
to  Syracuse  by  Dionysius  II,  about  368,  he  opposed  the 
influence  of  Dion  and  Plato  and  caused  them  to  be  exiled. 
When  Dion  took  Syracuse  from  Dionysius,  Philistus  became 
general  under  the  latter,  and,  being  taken  prisoner  in  a 
naval  battle,  was  put  to  death  in  356  b.  c.  His  works  were 
a  History  of  Sicily,  from  the  earliest  times  to  Dionysius  I, 
in  seven  books,  a  history  of  Dionysius  I,  in  four  books,  and 
two  books  on  Dionysius  II.  He  imitated  Thucydides  in 
style,  but  lacked  his  force  and  vigor.  He  had  a  taste  for 
legends,  and  was  wanting  in  the  scientific  spirit  and  impar- 
tiality which  distinguish  Thucydides.  His  love  and  admi- 
ration for  the  tyrants  of  Syracuse,  and  even  for  tyranny  in 
general,  were  evident  in  his  work. 


288  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Ephorus,  born  at  Cyme,  in  ^Eolia,  in  the  first  half  of 
the  fourth  century,  came  to  Athens  and  studied  under  the 
orator,  rhetorician,  and  teacher  Isocrates.     He 
p  °rus'  is  said  to  have  tried  without  much  success  to 

become  an  orator,  and  to  have  written  a  treatise  on  style ; 
but  his  reputation  is  due  to  his  great  history  of  the  ancient 
world  from  the  return  of  the  Heraclidse  to  the  siege  of 
Perinthus  by  Philip  in  340  b.  c.  The  work  consisted  of 
thirty  books,  each  with  a  preface.  Ephorus  was  still  living 
after  Alexander  came  to  the  throne,  but  he  died  without 
having  completed  his  history,  the  last  book  of  which  was 
finished  and  published  by  his  son  Demophilus. 

The  history  of  Ephorus,  though  primarily  a  history  of 
Greece,  treated  also  %)1  Persia,  Carthage,  and  other  coun- 
tries, and  was,  even  more  than  that  of  Herodo- 
f  e  jjst°ry  tus,  a  universal  history.  In  his  treatment  of 
early  times  Ephorus  removed  from  the  legends 
all  that  was  miraculous  or  marvelous  and  regarded  the  rest 
as  historical.  He  laid  down  the  excellent  rule  that  a 
detailed  account,  though  of  great  value  when  concerned 
with  recent  events,  is  to  be  distrusted  in  matters  of  very 
ancient  history,  because  an  accurate  knowledge  of  details 
is  in  such  cases  improbable,  and  therefore  the  details  given 
are  likely  to  be  imaginary.  This  rule  did  not,  however, 
prevent  him  from  inventing  details.  In  the  more  recent 
parts  of  the  history  he  showed  care  and  study.  He  read 
the  works  of  his  predecessors,  and  even  examined  original 
documents ;  but  he  had  a  taste  for  stories  and  anecdotes, 
and  does  not  seem  to  have  distinguished  carefully  between 
those  authorities  who  were  trustworthy  and  those  who  were 
not.  He  also  lacked  understanding  of  political  motives 
and  of  military  affairs.  His  statements  were  therefore  not 
always  to  be  trusted.  The  speeches  inserted  in  his  work 
were  attractive  as  speeches,  but  did  not  add  to  the  value  of 
the  history.  In  style  his  work  was  careful  and  elegant,  but 
lacked  vigor.     Only  fragments  of  the  history  of  Ephorus 


XENOPHON  AND  OTHER  HISTORIANS  289 

remain,  but  the  history  of  Diodorus  Siculus  (see  page  407) 
contains  much  material  derived  from  Ephorus. 

Theopompus,  son  of  Damasistratus,  was  born  at  Chios 
about  380  b.  c.     When  he  was  a  child  his  father  was  ban- 
ished, and  Theopompus  and  his  brother  Cau- 
eopompus.    cajug  grew  Up  jn  ex^e#     Their  father  was  rich, 

however,  and  gave  them  a  good  education.  About  360 
Theopompus  became  a  pupil  of  Isocrates,  and  like  Ephorus 
turned  his  attention  to  oratory.  This  art  he  practised  with 
great  success  for  many  years.  His  speech  in  honor  of  Maus- 
solus  won  the  prize  at  Halicarnassus.  He  traveled  about, 
giving  lessons  in  all  the  chief  cities  of  Greece,  and  in  this 
way  became  acquainted  with  many  places,  many  men,  and 
many  political  details.  He  was  a  friend  of  the  kings  of 
Macedon,  and  was  restored  to  his  native  land  by  Alexander 
at  the  age  of  fifty-five  years.  After  Alexander's  death  he 
was  expelled  from  Chios  and  went  first  to  Ephesus,  then  to 
several  other  cities,  and  finally  to  Egypt.  The  date  and 
place  of  his  death  are  unknown. 

The  entire  works  of  Theopompus  amounted,  as  he  him- 
self said,  to  seventy  thousand  lines.     About  one-eighth  of 
the  whole  was  oratorical,  the  rest  historical. 
Works  of         rpj^  historical  works  were  an  Abridgment  of 

Tneopompus.  .  . 

Herodotus,  a  History  of  Greece,  and  the  Philip- 
pica.  The  first  probably  offered  little  interest ;  the  second, 
which  told  in  twelve  books  the  history  of  Greece  from  410 
to  393  b.  c,  covering  part  of  the  same  ground  as  Xenophon's 
Hellenica,  has  left  few  traces  in  later  literature ;  the  third, 
which  told  the  history  of  Greece  from  362  B.  c.  (the  year 
with  which  Xenophon's  Hellenica  ends)  to  the  death  of 
Philip  in  336,  was  an  important  work.  The  title  shows 
that  Theopompus  understood  that  Philip  was  the  central 
figure  in  the  history  of  Greece  at  this  time.  Like  Ephorus, 
he  inserted  many  digressions  and  episodes,  descriptions  of 
customs,  anecdotes,  and  even  fables.  He  was  interested  in 
the  motives  of  men's  actions,  and  found  that  they  were 


290  GREEK  LITERATURE 

usually  bad.  Hence  he  is  criticized  for  defaming  the  char- 
acters of  the  kings  and  statesmen  of  whom  he  writes.  His 
political  sense  seems  to  have  been  superior  to  that  of 
Ephorus,  but,  like  Ephorus,  he  was  deficient  in  knowledge 
of  military  affairs.  He  was  learned  and  industrious  in 
collecting  material,  and  seems  to  have  been  impartial,  but 
his  desire  for  effect  in  writing  interfered  somewhat  with 
his  trustworthiness.  Isocrates  said  that  Ephorus  needed 
the  spur  and  Theopompus  the  bit.  This  seems  to  mean 
that  Theopompus  was  the  more  active  and  vigorous  of  the 
two,  and  what  is  left  of  his  works  shows  an  energetic  and 
sometimes  impassioned  style. 

To  this  period  belong  also  three  writers  of  Atthides,  or 
works  on  Attic  history  and  archaeology,  Clitodemus,  An- 
drotion,  and  Phanodemus.  Their  works  were  probably  sim- 
ilar to  those  of  Hellanicus  but  less  comprehensive.  They 
were  followed  by  other  writers  of  Atthides  in  the  third  cen- 
tury, the  most  important  of  whom  was  Philochorus,  about 
306  to  260  b.  c,  a  careful  investigator,  often  cited  by  later 
writers.  iEneas,  called  iEneas  Tacticus,  was  the  author  of 
an  extant  treatise  on  the  defense  of  towns,  taken  from  a 
larger  work  on  strategy  written  about  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century.  The  dialect  is  Attic,  and  the  work  con- 
tains interesting  personal  recollections.  Perhaps  the  au- 
thor is  the  .ZEneas  of  Stymphalus  mentioned  by  Xenophon. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

ATTIC    PHILOSOPHY-THE    SOPHISTS-SOCRATES    AND    HIS 
FOLLOWERS 

The  beginnings  of  oratory — Corax  and  Tisias,  about  460  b.  c. — The 
Sophists — Protagoras,  about  485  to  about  415  b.  c. — Gorgias,  about  485 
to  about  380  b.  c. — Prodicus,  about  450  b.  c. — Hippias,  about  430  b.  c. — 
Polus,  about  430  b.  c. — Stesimbrotus,  about  425  b.  c. — Antiphon,  about 
480-411  b.  c. — Tendencies  of  the  teaching  of  the  sophists — Socrates,  469- 
399  b.  c. — His  life  and  character — His  view  of  science — The  dialectic 
method — His  religion — Virtue  the  result  of  knowledge — JEschines, 
about  400  b.  c. — Euclides,  about  400  b.  c. — The  Megarian  School — 
Stilpo,  about  380-300  b.  c. — Phaedo,  about  400  b.  c. — Aristippus,  about  410 
b.  c. — The  Cyrenaic  School — Antisthenes,  about  400  b.  c. — The  Cynic 
School. 

The  founder  of  Attic  philosophy  is  Socrates.  But  Soc- 
rates can  not  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of  the 

sophists,  the  professional  teachers  of  the  later 
Socrates  and  fifth  century  who  combined  in  their  instruc- 
the  sophists.  •* 

tion  philosophy,  rhetoric,  and  practical  oratory. 

The  beginnings  of  systematic  instruction  in  oratory  are 
therefore  inseparable  from  the  other  teachings  of  the 
sophists  to  which  the  philosophy  of  Socrates  is  closely 
related,  though  the  relation  is  rather  one  of  contrast  than 
of  likeness. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  Greeks  were  a  race  of  ready 
speakers.  In  the  Homeric  poems  Nestor  and  Odysseus  are 
honored  for  their  eloquence;  and  much  later  Themistocles, 
and  after  him  Pericles  controlled  the  Athenians  by  their 
power  of  speech.     But  such  oratory,  however  excellent  it 

291 


292  GREEK  LITERATURE 

may  be,  does  not  belong  to  literature,  for  it  is  not  perma- 
nent, but  passes  away  with  the  speaker.  Oratory  as  a 
The  begin-  branch  of  literature  does  not  begin  until  sys- 
nings  of  tematic  instruction   in   oratory  begins.     The 

oratory.  first  oratorical  instruction  known  among  the 

Greeks  was  at  Syracuse,  the  great  Sicilian  city,  which  for 
years  seemed  to  be  the  equal  or  even  the  superior  of  Athens 
in  wealth,  power,  and  culture.  Here  the  expulsion  of  the 
tyrants  in  465  B.  c.  was  followed  by  many  lawsuits  for  the 
recovery  of  property,  and  the  practise  of  speaking  in  court 
developed  the  theory  of  legal  argument.  This  theory  was 
set  forth  by  Corax  and  his  pupil  Tisias,  both  of  Syracuse. 
They  taught  that  the  object  of  rhetoric  is  probability ;  for 
the  purpose  of  a  speaker  in  court  is  not  to  establish  the 
truth,  but  to  make  his  argument  appear  probable  to  the 
judges.  Morality  has  really  nothing  to  do  with  this  theory, 
for  the  same  process  of  argument  is  needed  to  make  the 
truth  appear  probable  and  to  give  an  air  of  probability  to 
falsehood.  Corax  and  Tisias  laid  down  rules  for  the  ar- 
rangement of  ideas  so  that  they  could  be  easily  grasped ; 
they  distinguished  the  introduction  from  the  discussion, 
and  probably  from  the  narrative,  and  taught  their  pupils 
to  bring  forward  arguments  in  proper  order.  They  do  not 
seem  to  have  tried  to  teach  literary  style.  Their  influence 
might  have  been  slight  if  they  had  not  coincided  in  date 
with  the  rise  of  the  sophists. 

The  word  "  sophist,"  designated  originally  any  one  in- 
terested in  wisdom  of  any  kind.     Pindar  uses  it  to  denote 

a  poet.  In  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  it 
The  sophists.         r  ,  ,       .    ..  n      J 

meant  a  man  who  pursued  wisdom,  and  espe- 
cially one  who  made  that  pursuit  his  profession,  in  other 
words  a  teacher.  It  was  not  until  the  fourth  century  that 
"  sophist "  was  a  term  of  reproach.  The  word  is  now  used 
chiefly  to  designate  a  group  of  men  belonging  to  the  fifth 
century  b.  c,  who  taught  in  various  cities  of  Greece,  espe- 
cially at  Athens,  receiving  pay  for  their  instruction.     They 


THE  SOPHISTS  293 

thought  that  the  researches  of  the  earlier  philosophers  into 
the  origin  and  management  of  the  world  were  useless,  first 
because  we  never  can  know  these  things,  and  then  because 
they  would  do  us  no  good  if  we  did  know  them.  They 
therefore  undertook  to  teach  not  the  secrets  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  practical  efficiency.  Now  almost  everywhere  in 
Greece  in  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century,  but  espe- 
cially at  Athens,  practical  efficiency  was  more  or  less  iden- 
tical with  the  ability  to  sway  the  minds  of  the  courts  and 
the  popular  assemblies.  A  large  part  of  the  teaching  of 
the  sophists  was  therefore  devoted  to  rhetoric  and  the  art 
of  persuasion,  and  they  claimed  to  teach  their  pupils  to 
make,  as  Protagoras  said,  "the  weaker  argument  stronger." 
The  number  of  sophists  at  the  time  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War  was  considerable,  and  they  played  an  important  part 
in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  time.  They  possess,  however, 
as  a  class,  no  great  literary  importance,  and  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  mention  only  a  few  of  them. 

The  earliest  in  date  is  Protagoras,  born  at  Abdera,  about 
485  b.  c.  He  studied  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus,  but  at 
about  the  age  of  thirty  years  began  to  travel 
about  as  a  sophist.  His  reputation  became  so 
great  that  he  received  one  hundred  minae  (about  $2,000) 
for  a  course  of  lectures.  When  about  seventy  years  old,  he 
was  obliged  to  leave  Athens,  which  had  been  his  home  for 
some  years,  on  account  of  a  charge  of  impiety,  and  was  lost 
in  a  shipwreck  on  his  way  to  Sicily.  His  writings,  composed 
in  the  Ionic  dialect,  were  numerous.  The  most  important 
were  a  treatise  called  Truth,  in  which  he  set  forth  his 
skeptical  philosophy,  and  a  rhetorical  text-book,  the  title  of 
which  is  uncertain.  Protagoras  declared  that  "  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things " ;  in  other  words,  that  there  is  no 
real  truth,  but  that  the  universe  is  only  the  sum  of  men's 
ideas  about  it.  He  said  that  he  did  not  know  whether  the 
gods  exist  or  not,  and  in  general  his  mental  attitude  was 
one  of  extreme  skepticism.     But  with  all  that,  he  was  per- 


294  GREEK  LITERATURE 

sonally  of  excellent  character.  In  his  rhetorical  work,  be- 
sides giving  rules  for  arguments  and  the  like,  he  made  a 
beginning  of  logic  and  of  grammar,  distinguishing  the 
gender  of  nouns  and  some  of  the  tenses  of  verbs. 

Gorgias  of  Leontini,  in  Sicily,  was  born  about  485,  and 
died,  over  one  hundred  years  old,  about  380  B.  c.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  Empedocles  and 
Tisias.  In  427  he  was  sent  to  Athens  as  an 
ambassador  from  his  native  town,  but  is  not  known  to  have 
performed  any  other  public  duty.  At  Athens,  where  he 
spent  much  time,  he  had  great  success  as  a  sophist,  and  his 
works  were  written  in  the  Attic  dialect.  But  he  traveled 
about  Greece,  and  was  highly  esteemed  at  Larisa,  in  Thes- 
saly,  after  his  reputation  had  begun  to  decline  at  Athens. 
He  made  much  money,  which  he  spent  freely  on  fine 
clothes  and  ostentation ;  but  his  habits  were  temperate,  and 
he  preserved  his  vigor  to  the  last.  He  wrote  a  work  On 
Nature  or  on  That  which  is  Not,  some  technical  writings 
on  rhetoric,  and  a  number  of  orations,  some  of  which  were 
no  doubt  really  delivered  on  festival  occasions  or  at  funerals, 
while  others  were  written  for  practise  or  as  specimens  of 
his  art.  His  teachings  and  example  exercised  great  influ- 
ence upon  the  literary  style  of  contemporary  and  later 
writers.  As  a  philosopher,  Gorgias  was  as  skeptical  as 
Protagoras.  He  said,  "  Nothing  exists,  and  if  it  exists  it 
can  not  be  known  by  man,  and  if  it  can  be  known  it  can 
not  be  expressed."  Obviously,  then,  he  thought  time  spent 
in  the  search  for  real  truth  was  wasted. 

Gorgias  was  more  an  orator  than  Protagoras,  and  taught 

not  only  argumentation  and   arrangement   of  ideas,  but 

style,  the  art  of  arranging  words  and  sentences 

ty  e  o     or-     ^-^  a  yjew  ^Q  pjeagmg  the  ear  0f  ^he  hearer. 

He  wrote  in  Attic  Greek,  but  not  the  language 
of  every-day  life,  for  he  used  some  poetic  and  archaic  words 
to  lend  dignity  to  his  composition.  He  was  very  careful  in 
his  choice  of  words  and  his  arrangement  of  phrases.     He 


THE  SOPHISTS  295 

liked  to  balance  his  sentences  so  as  to  oppose  one  to  another, 
and  he  took  care  to  have  his  clauses  end  in  similar  sounds, 
as  well  as  to  give  them  the  same  number  of  syllables.  All 
this  gives  his  prose  a  certain  dignity  and  finish,  but  leaves 
it  monotonous  and  artificial.  Of  the  works  of  Gorgias 
nothing  is  left  except  fragments  of  orations  and  two  entire 
speeches,  one  a  defense  of  Helen,  the  other  supposed  to  be 
delivered  by  Palamedes  when  accused  of  treason  by  Odys- 
seus. The  authenticity  of  these  speeches  is  doubted  by 
many  scholars,  but  they  have  the  qualities  ascribed  by  the 
ancients  to  Gorgias,  and  serve  to  give  a  good  idea  of  his 
literary  style. 

Other  sophists  of  less  importance  are  Prodicus,  Hippias, 
and  Polus,  all  of  whom,  as  well  as  Protagoras  and  Gorgias, 
Prodicus,  figure  in  Plato's  dialogues.  Prodicus,  born  at 
Hippias,  Iulis,  in  Ceos,  was  younger  than  Protagoras, 

Polus.  DUt  perhaps  a  little  older  than  Socrates.     He 

came  to  Athens  frequently  as  envoy.  His  reputation  was 
great,  and  he  earned  much  money  as  a  teacher  of  morals 
and  rhetorical  style.  He  preached  the  current  morality 
of  the  day,  political  and  domestic  virtues,  and  was  appar- 
ently not  philosophical  nor  scientific,  but  sensible  and 
practical.  In  his  rhetorical  teaching  he  laid  great  stress 
upon  the  exact  meanings  of  words  and  the  distinctions 
between  synonyms.  Hippias,  from  Elis,  was  born  about 
470  b.  c.  He  laid  claim  to  universal  knowledge,  and  dis- 
coursed upon  all  subjects  with  equal  facility  and  shallow- 
ness. In  addition  to  this  he  made  his  own  clothes  and  shoes. 
Polus,  a  pupil  of  Gorgias,  wrote  a  work  on  rhetoric,  in  which 
he  recommended  various  ornaments  of  speech,  and  his  own 
language  was  adorned  with  figures,  epigrams,  and  the  like. 
Stesimbrotus  of  Thasos,  whose  historical  work 
has  been  mentioned  before,  was  a  sophist  in 
so  far  as  he  gave  lessons  for  pay,  but  he  occupied  himself 
little  with  rhetoric  and  less  with  philosophy,  preferring 
to  comment  on  Homer,  probably  with  the  purpose  of 
20 


296  GREEK  LITERATURE 

finding  moral  teachings  hidden  in  the  verses  of  the  great 
epics.  Several  works  are  cited  by  ancient  authors  under 
the  name  of  Antiphon — a  treatise  On  Truth, 
one  On  Concord,  and  one  called  Politicus.  The 
first  was  a  general  work  on  nature  and  philosophy ;  the  sec- 
ond a  plea  for  peace  and  concord,  on  the  ground  that 
human  life  is  not  too  happy  at  best,  and  should  therefore 
not  be  made  less  so  by  useless  quarrels ;  the  third  a  treatise 
on  morals,  especially  as  affecting  the  life  of  man  in  the 
state  or  city.  Whether  these  works  are  to  be  ascribed  to 
the  orator  Antiphon  or  to  a  sophist  of  the  same  name  is 
uncertain.  The  fragments  show  a  subtle  and  vigorous 
mind,  and  are  written  in  a  style  such  as  the  orator  Antiphon 
might  have  used  in  writing  treatises.  At  any  rate,  the 
three  treatises  belong  clearly  to  the  time  of  the  sophists, 
whether  they  are  the  work  of  the  orator  Antiphon  or  not. 

The  general  tendency  of  the  doctrines  of  the  sophists 
was  skeptical,  and  at  the  same  time  unscientific.  Their 
pupils,  whose  faith  in  the  gods  was  undermined,  might  be 
expected  to  lose  the  foundation  of  morals,  and  the  same 
result  was  even  more  likely  to  be  reached  through  their 
teaching  that  persuasion,  plausibility,  the  appearance  of 
truth,  rather  than  truth  itself,  is  to  be  sought  by  the 
orator.  The  general  effect  of  the  sophistical  teaching  was 
therefore  bad,  though  many  of  the  sophists  were  personally 
honest  and  honorable  men,  whose  example  counteracted  in 
a  measure  the  tendencies  of  their  teaching. 

Socrates,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  who  ever 
lived,  resembled  the  sophists  in  believing  that  the  origin 
of  the  universe,  the  causes  of  natural  phenom- 
°°ra  e?.a^  ena,  and  the  like  are  not  the  proper  objects  of 
study,  and  in  turning  his  attention  to  the  pur- 
suit of  practical  efficiency;  but  he  differed  from  them  in 
seeking  practical  efficiency  not  in  the  ability  to  persuade 
the  people  or  the  judges,  but  in  virtue,  which  he  regarded 
as  a  result  of  knowledge.     He  was  not  a  writer,  but  his 


SOCRATES  AND  HIS  FOLLOWERS  297 

influence  upon  literature  was  greater  than  that  of  any  man 

of  his  time,  and  he  can  not  be  disregarded  in  any  history 

of  Greek  literature. 

Socrates,  the  son  of  a  sculptor,  Sophroniscus,  and  a 

midwife,  Phaenarete,  was  born  at  Athens  in  469  b.  c.     His 

parents   were   poor,  but  their  son   learned  to 

Life  of  read,  ^0  wrjte  anc[  to  know  the  works  of  the 

Socrates. 

poets,  as   did   other  young  Athenians.     As  a 

youth  he  practised  his  father's  art,  though  the  group  of 
the  Graces  ascribed  to  him,  which  Pausanias  mentions  at 
the  entrance  to  the  Acropolis  at  Athens,  was  probably  not 
his  work.  But  sculpture  interested  him  less  than  philoso- 
phy. In  his  early  manhood  Heraclitus  and  Parmenides 
were  old  men  or  had  recently  died,  Anaxagoras  and  Zeno 
were  in  their  prime,  and  Protagoras,  Gorgias,  and  Prodi- 
cus  were  gaining  great  reputations.  The  intellectual  move- 
ment of  the  time  took  possession  of  Socrates,  and  though 
his  poverty  prevented  his  being  a  regular  pupil  of  any 
sophist,  he  knew  the  substance  of  their  teaching  through 
conversation  with  them  or  their  pupils  and  through  read- 
ing. His  life  was  for  the  most  part  uneventful.  Like 
every  Athenian,  he  was  a  soldier  when  the  state  needed 
him.  At  the  siege  of  Potidaea  (432-429)  he  endured  the 
hardships  of  the  Thracian  winter  without  a  murmur, 
showed  the  highest  courage,  and  saved  the 
is  courage.    ^.^  ^  ^e  wounded  Alcibiades.     At  Delium 

also  (424)  his  courage  was  conspicuous.  He  abstained 
from  public  life,  believing  that  it  would  interfere  with  his 
search  for  truth  and  involve  him  in  needless  enmities.  But 
in  406  he  was  serving  his  turn  as  presiding  officer  in  the 
assembly  when  it  was  proposed  that  the  generals  in  com- 
mand at  the  battle  of  the  Arginusae  be  judged  collectively, 
not,  as  the  law  directed,  one  at  a  time.  Socrates  refused 
to  put  the  question  to  vote,  though  he  knew  his  opposition 
endangered  his  life.  Again,  a  few  years  later,  the  Thirty 
Tyrants  ordered  him,  with  four  others,  to  arrest  a  certain 


298  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Leon  illegally.  Socrates  alone  refused,  though  his  refusal 
would  have  cost  him  his  life  if  the  oligarchy  had  not  been 
overturned.  He  was  married  to.  Xanthippe,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  woman  of  quick  and  unrestrained  temper,  to 
be  sure,  but  not  the  unmitigated  vixen  she  has  been  sup- 
posed to  be.  Of  his  three  sons,  one,  Lamprocles,  was  a 
youth  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death,  the  two  others  chil- 
dren. In  399  b.  c,  soon  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Thirty 
and  the  restoration  of  the  democracy,  Meletus,  Anytus, 
and  Lycon  accused  Socrates  of  introducing  new  divinities 
and  of  corrupting  the  young.  After  a  remarkable  trial,  he 
was  condemned  to  death,  in  April  or  May ;  but 
the  day  after  the  trial  the  sacred  trireme 
sailed  for  Delos  on  its  annual  mission  of  worship,  and 
since  during  its  absence  no  execution  could  take  place, 
Socrates  spent  a  month  in  prison  before  drinking  the  fatal 
hemlock. 

While  agreeing  with  the  sophists  that  the  study  of 
nature  and  of  the  origin  of  all  things  as  pursued  by  the 
earlier  philosophers  was  useless,  Socrates  did  not  con- 
clude, like  Protagoras,  that  man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things,  nor,  like  Gorgias,  that  truth  or  reality  must  remain 
unknown.  He  believed  that  human  knowledge  is  limited 
by  human  needs,  and  that  utility  to  man  is  the  proper  end 
The  proper  an(^  purpose  of  human  knowledge.  He  there- 
object  of  fore  accepted  geometry,  astronomy,  and  the 
science.  other  sciences  as  legitimate  objects  of  study 
in  so  far  as  they  are  useful  to  the  surveyor,  the  sailor,  and 
others,  and  in  the  same  way  he  regarded  all  useful  arts  and 
trades  as  legitimate  parts,  though  humble  parts,  of  science. 
But  all  these  things  he  considered  secondary.  The  science 
which  in  his  eyes  was  of  real  importance  is  that  which  en- 
ables a  man  to  live  happily  and  honorably  in  the  com- 
munity, that  which  tends  to  make  a  man  a  perfect  citizen, 
possessing  political,  moral,  and  intellectual  virtue  as  under- 
stood by  the  Athenians  of  the  fifth  century.     Herein  he 


SOCRATES  AND  HIS  FOLLOWERS  299 

agreed  with  the  sophists.  For  him,  as  for  them,  the  one 
great  science  is  moral  science. 

But  the  difference  between  Socrates  and  the  sophists 
is  that  for  the  sophists  moral  science  consists  of  words ;  it 
is  rhetoric  or  argumentative  ability.  Prodicus,  to  be  sure, 
spoke  of  virtue,  justice,  and  truth,  but  he  did  not  define 
them  nor  distinguish  them  clearly  from  their  opposites, 
having  no  real  scientific  knowledge  of  them,  through  lack 
of  any  method  in  studying  them.  Socrates 
mtthod16^10  develoPed  the  dialectic  method— that  is,  the 
method  of  analyzing  ideas  by  conversation,  by 
questions  and  answers,  and  thus  reaching  accurate  defini- 
tions. In  continuous  speech  obscurities  and  even  contra- 
dictions may  pass  unnoticed.  The  purpose  of  dialectic 
is  to  discover  and  do  away  with  these.  At  each  step  the 
two  speakers  make  sure  that  they  understand  each  other 
exactly,  that  there  is  no  obscurity  or  contradiction  in 
their  thought.  By  this  means  Socrates  examines  the  state- 
ments of  the  sophists,  lays  bare  their  contradictions,  and 
shows  that  they  do  not  understand  what  they  say.  By 
the  same  method  of  careful  analysis  he  supplies  true  and 
accurate  ideas  in  place  of  the  false  or  vague.  Dialectic 
examines  similar  things  and  compares  them,  thus  attaining 
to  the  knowledge  of  their  general  character.  It  defines 
and  classifies  them.  By  induction  it  advances  from  par- 
ticular examples  to  the  definition  of  general  terms  and 
creates  science  properly  so  called. 

The  science  of  Socrates  is  above  all  the  science  of  moral 
things,  for  these  are  in  his  eyes  the  most  important  and 
useful  to  men,  but  he  does  not  exclude  the  practical  arts  ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  liked  to  talk  with  men  of  all  profes- 
sions about  their  professional  affairs.  He  believed,  how- 
ever, that  the  gods  reserved  to  themselves  some  secrets 
which  they  revealed  to  men  at  their  pleasure;  in  other 
words,  that  there  are  some  things  which  can  not  be  made 
the  objects  of  scientific  knowledge.     He  himself  received 


300  GREEK  LITERATURE 

inspirations  from  the  gods,  and  these  inspirations  collective- 
ly are  what. is  meant  when  reference  is  made  to  the  "  daemon 
inspiration  °f  Socrates."  The  expression  is  misleading,  for 
from  the  Socrates  does  not  seem  to  have  believed  that  a 

gods.  peculiar  individual  spirit  spoke  to  him,  but 

rather  that  he  had  intuitions  sent  by  the  deity  to  warn  him 
against  any  mistake  he  might  be  on  the  point  of  making. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  moral  questions  ex- 
amined by  Socrates  is  the  relation  between  the  good  and 
Virtue  the  ^ne  beautiful.  He  shows  that  the  useful,  the 
result  of  good,  and  the  beautiful  are  one ;  that  in  the 

knowledge.  WOrld  of  morals  virtue  alone  is  advantageous, 
and  that  it  is  consequently  foolish  to  do  wrong.  Virtue  is 
therefore  the  result  of  knowledge. 

From  the  orderly  arrangement  and  conduct  of  natural 
phenomena,  and  of  the  world  in  general,  Socrates  argues 
that  things  must  exist  for  a  purpose,  and  hence  reaches  the 
conclusion  that  the  world  is  governed  by  an 
intelligent  Providence.  He  speaks  sometimes 
of  the  gods,  sometimes  of  God,  and  seems  to  have  regarded 
the  individual  gods  as  manifestations  of  one  divine  being. 
He  probably  believed  in  a  life  after  death,  but  without  being 
able  to  prove  it. 

Eeligion,  morals,  and  scientific  method  were  closely 
united  in  Socrates's  mind.  He  could  not  think  of  one  with- 
out the  others,  and  he  made  it  the  object  of  his  life  to 
pursue  his  method  and  discover  the  truth.  To  this  end  he 
refrained  from  public  life,  and  passed  his  time  in  questioning 
his  fellow  citizens  and  forcing  them  to  give  strict  account 
of  their  words  and  opinions.  He  believed  that  he  had  a 
mission  from  the  gods  to  examine  others  and  force  them  to 
examine  themselves.  When  on  trial  for  his  life,  he  might 
have  been  acquitted  if  he  had  been  willing  to  give  up  his 
pursuit  of  truth,  his  cross-examination  of  himself  and 
others ;  but  he  felt  that  life  without  such  examination  was 
not  worth  living.     After  his  condemnation,  he  spent  his 


SOCRATES  AND  HIS  FOLLOWERS  301 

time  in  prison  conversing  in  his  usual  way  with  his  friends, 
and  refused  to  escape  when  the  opportunity  was  offered. 

The  influence  of  Socrates  and  his  philosophy  can  hardly 
be  overestimated,  for  almost  all  philosophical  religion  and 
moral  science  owes  its  origin  to  him ;  and  his 
influence  of  ifterary  influence  is  hardly  less  important.  His 
conversations  impressed  his  hearers  most  vivid- 
ly. From  them  arose  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  and  from  these 
again  all  the  literary  dialogues  of  later  times ;  and  it  is  due 
to  Socrates  that  Attic  prose,  which  under  the  influence  of 
the  sophists  was  becoming  ornate,  artificial,  and  stilted,  was 
led  back  to  that  natural  simplicity  which  is  the  height  of  art. 

Socrates  disclaimed  the  title  of  teacher,  for  he  said  the 
only  thing  he  knew  was  that  he  knew  nothing.  He  there- 
fore did  not  teach,  but  brought  to  light  the  truth  hidden 
in  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  as  a  midwife  assists  in  the  birth 
of  children.  His  hearers  he  called  not  pupils,  but  friends 
or  companions.  They  were,  like  himself,  seekers  after 
truth,  and  since  he  taught  them  nothing,  he  received  no 
pay  from  them.  But  although  he  thus  gave  no  regular 
instruction,  his  influence  upon  those  about  him  was  greater 
than  that  of  any  other  teacher,  and  among  his  companions, 
who  were  really  his  pupils,  were  several  who  exercised  the 
greatest  influence  upon  subsequent  Greek  thought.  By 
far  the  greatest  of  these  was  Plato ;  but  several  founded 
schools  of  philosophy,  others  show  his  influence  in  their 
writings,  while  still  others  were  content  to  live  with  him 
and  join  in  his  conversations  without  making  for  them- 
selves names  in  the  history  of  literature. 

iEschines  of  Sphettus  wrote  Socratic  dialogues,  which 
were  said  to  render  the  manner  of  Socrates  with  great  accu- 
racy, but  not  even  fragments  remain  sufficient 

s^r  tes  ^°  &*ve  us  an  *^ea  °^  their  quality.     Euclides 

of   Megara   founded   the   Megarian   school   of 

philosophy.     He  had  been  a  disciple  of  the  Eleatic  school 

before  coming  into  contact  with  Socrates,  and  in  his  teach- 


302  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ing  he  combined  the  Eleatic  doctrine  of  Being  and  the  One 
with  the  Socratic  doctrine  of  the  Good ;  of  his  works,  which 
were  in  the  form  of  dialogues,  nothing  remains.  Of  the 
later  leaders  of  the  Megarian  school,  Stilpo  (about  380-300 
B.  c),  whose  ethics  resembled  those  of  the  Cynics,  but  whose 
chief  strength  was  in  argument,  attained  some  distinction. 
Of  the  nine  dialogues  ascribed  to  him  nothing  remains. 
Phaedo  of  Elis  also  wrote  dialogues.  After  the  death  of 
Socrates  he  founded  a  school  at  Elis,  which  was  removed  to 
Eretria  by  Menedemus  early  in  the  third  century.  Antis- 
thenes  of  Athens,  a  pupil  of  Gorgias  before  he  attached  him- 
self to  Socrates,  was  the  founder  of  the  Cynic  school,  which 
received  its  name  from  the  gymnasium  Cynosarges,  where 
Antisthenes  taught.  He  developed  the  Cynic  doctrine  that 
science  based  on  general  ideas  is  vain,  and  that  practical 
virtue  or  wisdom,  and  with  it  happiness,  consists  in  freedom 
from  all  needs  and  desires.  His  doctrine  was  expressed  in 
some  forty  philosophical  works,  many  of  which  were  -dia- 
logues. He  also  wrote  commentaries  on  Homer  and  sophis- 
tical discourses.  Two  of  these  latter,  but  of  doubtful 
authenticity,  are  preserved — speeches  of  Ajax  and  Odys- 
seus in  support  of  their  claims  to  the  armor  of  Achilles. 
These  are  of  little  interest;  but  the  ancients  regarded 
Antisthenes  as  an  eloquent  and  able  writer.  Aristippus 
of  Cyrene  was  the  founder  of  the  Cyrenaic  school  which 
sought  the  highest  good  in  pleasure.  He  agreed  with 
Antisthenes  in  confining  his  researches  to  virtue  and  the 
best  life,  rejecting  the  pursuit  of  knowledge;  he  sought 
virtue,  however,  not  in  freedom  from  desires,  but  in  their 
gratification.  His  doctrine  was  expressed  in  dialogues,  of 
which  little  is  known.  Xenophon,  who  has  been  classed 
among  historians,  and  Isocrates,  who  will  be  discussed 
among  the  orators,  were  also  pupils  of  Socrates.  But  the 
greatest  of  all,  the  one  who  entered  most  fully  into  the 
mind  of  the  master,  and  developed  from  his  teaching  the 
most  perfect  system,  was  Plato. 


PLATO. 

Bust  in  the  Vatican  Museum,  Rome. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

PLATO-THE  OLD  ACADEMY 

Plato,  427  (?)  to  347  b.  c— Plato's  life— His  writings— His  doctrines- 
Theory  of  ideas — Other  doctrines — The  dialogues  ;  their  style,  charac- 
ters, and  composition — Myths — Plato's  influence — The  Academy — Speu- 
sippus,  about  393-339  b.  c. — Xenocrates,  (!)  -314  b.  c. — Polemo,  about 
350-270  b.  c— Crates,  about  340-260  (?)  b.  c— Crantor,  about  335  to 
about  275  b.  c. 

Plato,  son  of  Ariston  and  Perictione  of  the  Attic  deme 
Collytus,  was  born  in  May  (Thargelion  7)  of  one  of  the 
early  years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  probably  427  B.  c. 
His  father  claimed  to  be  descended  from  Codrus,  the  last 
king  of  Athens,  and  his  mother  was  a  cousin  of  Critias,  the 
prominent  politician  and  author  (see  page  244).  Plato  had 
two  brothers,  Adimantus  and  Glaucon,  a  sister  Potone, 
,    .  whose  son  Speusippus  inherited  Plato's  prop- 

erty and  became  the  head  of  his  school  after 
his  death,  and  a  half-brother,  Antiphon.  His  own  real  name 
is  said  to  have  been,  like  that  of  his  grandfather,  Aristocles, 
until  his  gymnastic  teacher  called  him  Plato  on  account  of 
the  breadth  of  his  shoulders.  His  early  education  was 
careful,  and  included  music,  poetry,  and  gymnastics  as 
well  as  lessons  from  Cratylus,  a  disciple  of  Heraclitus.  At 
the  age  of  twenty  he  met  Socrates,  and  for  some  eight 
years,  until  399  b.  c,  was  one  of  his  most  faithful  followers. 
At  the  time  of  the  death  of  Socrates,  Plato  was  ill  and  could 
not  be  present.  He  regarded  his  own  philosophy  as  derived 
from  that  of  Socrates,  who  is  therefore  the  chief  personage 
in  his  dialogues.     After  the  death  of  Socrates,  Plato  went 

303 


304  GREEK  LITERATURE 

to  Euclides  at  Megara,  then  traveled  for  ten   or  twelve 

years,  going  to  Cyrene,  Italy,  and  Egypt.     At  Cyrene  he 

met  the  mathematician  Theodorus,  in  Italy  the 

His  tr&VBls 

Pythagoreans  Archytas  and  Timaeus,  and  in 
Egypt  he  felt  the  mysterious  influence  of  a  very  old  and 
very  religious  civilization.  When  he  was  about  forty  years 
old  he  was  invited  to  the  court  of  Dionysius  I,  tyrant  of 
Syracuse.  Dion,  brother-in-law  of  Dionysius,  was  a  man  of 
excellent  intentions,  and  hoped  that  Plato  would  lead  the 
tyrant  in  the  paths  of  virtue.  But  the  experiment  was  not 
successful.,  Plato  was  driven  away  from  Syracuse,  and  re- 
turned to  Athens.  It  is  even  said  that  he  was  sold  into 
slavery  and  had  to  be  redeemed  by  a  friend.  Unlike  Soc- 
rates, who  had  conversed  wherever  he  happened  to  be,  Plato 
met  his  friends  and  pupils  regularly  at  the  same  place— the 
grove  called  the  Academy,  because  it  was  sa- 
cred to  the  hero  Academus.  Here  he  taught 
and  conversed  during  the  last  forty  years  of  his  life.  Twice 
his  teaching  was  interrupted  by  voyages  to  Sicily,  in  367 
and  361,  for  Dion  hoped  that  Plato  might  succeed  better 
with  Dionysius  II  than  he  had  done  with  Dionysius  I,  but 
Plato  seems  to  have  returned  to  Athens  without  accom- 
plishing much.  He  died  in  347  B.  c,  in  his  eighty-first 
year,  leaving  his  house  and  property  to  his  nephew  Speu- 
sippus,  who  in  turn  bequeathed  them  to  his  pupils,  thus 
making  Plato's  house  the  permanent  home  of  the  academic 
school. 

The  writings  preserved  under  the  name  of  Plato  com- 
prise forty-two  dialogues,  thirteen  letters,  and  some  defini- 
tions.    Of  all  these,  about  thirty  dialogues  are 
a.*°  s  actually  by  Plato.     We  have  therefore  ample 

material  by  which  to  judge  of  his  doctrine 
and  style.  It  seems,  too,  that  none  of  his  works  has  been 
lost  since  ancient  times.  A  discussion  of  his  philosophy 
would  be  out  of  place  in  a  history  of  literature,  but  some 
of  its  chief  features  should  be  mentioned. 


PLATO  305 

As  a  philosopher,  Plato  continues  the  teachings  of  Soc- 
rates, and  carries  them  further.  He  retains  the  dialectic 
method  and  the  religious  and  moral  doctrine  of  his  master, 
but  adds  a  complete  system  of  metaphysics.  Like  Socrates, 
he  analyzes  and  defines  the  general  notions  existing  in  the 
human  mind,  such  as  the  good,  the  beautiful,  courage, 
justice,  and  pleasure.  But  Socrates  thought  the  general 
idea  was  merely  a  conception  in  the  human  mind,  without 
any  separate  existence  of  his  own ;  while  Plato  believed  that 
ideas  have  an  independent  existence  and  that  all  that  we  per- 
ceive is  only  a  copy,  more  or  less  imperfect,  of 
e  oc  nne  ^e  e^ernaj  ideas#  j?or  instance,  we  obtain  by 
dialectic  and  definition  a  conception  of  courage. 
Corresponding  to  this  there  is  in  the  world  of  ideas  a  real 
and  perfect  courage,  of  which  our  conception  is  only  a  copy. 
Similarly  there  is  a  perfect  statesman,  a  perfect  chair,  per- 
fect justice,  all  existing  as  realities  in  a  world  of  ideas. 
And  it  is  only  the  world  of  ideas  which  has  real  exist- 
ence ;  for  all  earthly  things  are  but  copies  of  the  eternal 
ideas,  and  have  only  an  apparent  existence.  They  stand  in 
the  same  relation  to  ideas  as  a  picture  of  a  table  to  a  table. 
This  is  the  Platonic  theory  of  ideas.  The  one  idea,  most 
perfect  of  all,  which  embraces  all  the  rest,  is  the  idea  of 
Good. 

Science  consists  in  the  knowledge  of  ideas  as  revealed 
to  pure  reason  without  the  illusions  of  the  senses.  The 
senses  give  us  only  opinions,  as  variable  and 
doctTin  s  uncertain  as  the  objects  that  produce  them. 

Only  reason,  rising  up  to  ideas  by  means  of 
dialectic,  attains  to  real  science.  Dialectic  leads  the  mind 
by  degrees  from  the  sensible  appearance  to  the  correspond- 
ing idea,  then  to  a  higher  idea,  and  so  on  until  it  reaches 
the  highest  *  and  most  perfect,  the  idea  of  good.  Outside 
of  dialectic  there  is  no  science.  Plato  seems,  however,  to 
believe,  as  Socrates  did,  that  there  are  some  secrets  of  the 
gods  not  accessible  to  dialectic,  not  the  objects  of  knowl- 


306  GREEK  LITERATURE 

edge,  but  only  of  faith  or  belief.  He  does  attempt  a  dia- 
lectic proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  in  describing 
the  life  after  death  he  adopts  the  form  of  a  myth,  showing 
clearly  that  he  lays  no  claim  to  accurate  knowledge  about 
it.  This  form  he  occasionally  adopts  when  his  subject 
seems  to  him  ill  adapted  to  dialectic  treatment,  and  in  his 
myths  are  embodied  some  of  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  his 
works. 

Plato  cares  little  for  the  natural  sciences,  considering 
moral  science,  the  practical  science  of  life  in  the  commu- 
nity, the  most  important  object  of  study.  The  human  soul 
is  likened  to  a  chariot  with  two  horses  driven  by  a  chariot- 
eer. The  charioteer  is  the  intellect,  the  horses  passion  and 
desire.  Justice  is  attained  when  these  three  are  in  har- 
mony, the  intellect  governing  the  other  two.  So  in  the 
ideal  state,  which  Plato  describes  in  the  Republic,  there  are 
three  classes — that  of  the  magistrates,  who 
^eg8t°^ean  govern  the  state;  the  guardians,  who  serve  as 
soldiers  and  protect  it ;  and  the  artisans,  mer- 
chants, and  laborers,  who  support  it;  and  perfect  government 
exists  when  the  three  classes  are  in  harmony.  The  human 
mind  is  capable  of  knowledge  of  ideas  only  because  in  a 
previous  state  of  existence  it  has  seen  the  ideas  themselves. 
Before  entering  upon  earthly  life  it  has  forgotten  what  it 
has  seen,  but  education  has  power  to  recall  the  ideas  to  its 
memory.     This  is  the  doctrine  of  recollection. 

Plato's  doctrines  are  expressed  in  dialogues  composed 
with  the  most  consummate  skill  and  written  in  a  style  in- 
comparable for  grace,  delicacy,  and  simplicity, 
e   ia-  These  dialogues  vary  greatly  in  length,  from 

the  Crito,  covering  only  a  few  pages,  to  the 
Republic  and  the  Laws,  with  ten  and  twelve  books  respect- 
ively. They  vary  also  in  importance,  some  being  charm- 
ing and  half  playful  discussions  of  minor  points,  interesting 
to  us  chiefly  for  the  light  they  throw  upon  Athenian  life 
in  Plato's  time,  while  others  are  serious  and  weighty,  de- 


PLATO  307 

voted  to  the  explanation  of  the  most  important  doctrines. 
Most  of  the  dialogues  are  named  from  one  of  the  characters 
who  take  part  in  them,  as  the  Cratylus,  Gorgias,  Protago- 
ras, and  Lysis,  while  others,  the  Politicus,  Republic,  and 
Laws,  derive  their  titles  from  their  subjects.  The  Sympo- 
sium or  "  Banquet "  is  named  from  the  scene  described,  and 
the  Apology  or  "  Defense  of  Socrates  "  is  a  more  or  less  im- 
aginary reproduction  of  the  speeches  made  by  Socrates  at 
his  trial.  The  dates  of  the  dialogues  and  the  order  of  their 
composition  have  given  rise  to  much  discussion,  but  no 
general  agreement  has  been  reached,  though  the  Apology  is 
supposed  by  most  scholars  to  have  been  written  not  long 
after  the  death  of  Socrates,  and  the  Laws  is  known  to  be  a 
late  work,  finished  after  Plato's  death  by  one  of  his  pupils. 
In  many  of  the  dialogues  the  circumstances  and  the 
scene  of  the  conversation  are  described  with  much  detail, 
in  others  they  are  briefly  sketched,  while  in 

cenes  o      e    gome  cases  there  is  hardly  any  indication  of 
dialogues.  *  J  ,    *    x 

the  place  or  manner  in  which   the   speakers 

meet.  So,  too,  some  of  the  dialogues  are  conducted  through- 
out with  the  strictest  dialectic  method,  with  all  the  minute 
care  and  even  dryness  which  the  method  involves,  while 
others  are  easy  and  charming.  In  most  of  them  there  are 
passages  of  difficult  and  exact  reasoning  side  by  side  with 
specimens  of  easy  and  delightful  conversation  and  descrip- 
tion. Plato  is  not  only  a  dialectician  ;  he  is  a  consummate 
literary  artist.  His  works  are  full  of  reminiscences  of 
Homer  and  the  other  poets,  of  beautiful  imagery,  which 
needs  only  metre  to  be  lyric  poetry,  and  of  delicate  humor 
such  as  is  found  only  in  the  most  perfect  comedy. 

The  persons   introduced  are  often   real   characters,  as 
Protagoras,  Gorgias,  Polus,  Hippias,  and  Prodicus,  all  of 
whom  are  so  depicted  that  they  seem  to  live 
fhe  diaio°  ues    an(*  sPea^  hef ore  the  eyes  of  the  reader ;  some- 
times  they   are   rather   types    of    intelligent, 
beautiful  Athenian   youths,  like  Charmides  or  Lysis;   or 


308  GREEK  LITERATURE 

again  they  are  the  intimate  friends  and  followers  of  Soc- 
rates, such  as  Phaedo,  Chaerephon,  Simmias  and  Cebes,  or 
Crito,  the  old  friend  who  wished  to  enable  Socrates  to  es- 
cape from  prison.  All  these  speak  from  the  living  page  of 
Plato  and  make  us  seem  to  enter  into  the  life  of  ancient 
Athens  more  intimately  even  than  do  the  comedies  of  Ar- 
istophanes. And  among  them  all  Socrates  stands  forth  as 
the  central  figure ;  sometimes  the  real  Socrates,  with  his 
sharp  dialectic,  his  penetrating  irony,  and  his  lofty  spirit,  at 
other  times  an  idealized  Socrates,  raised  aloft  on  the  wings 
of  metaphysical  speculation  to  the  highest  flights  of  imag- 
ery and  inspired  thought.  It  is  still  Socrates,  but  it  is  even 
more  Plato. 

The  style  of  Plato  is  as  various  as  the  persons  of  his 
dialogues,  for  each  person  speaks  in  accordance  with  his 
character.  In  fact,  his  imitations  of  Gorgias 
and  Lysias  give  us  examples  of  the  style  of 
those  two  writers  almost  as  perfect  as  if  they  had  them- 
selves composed  them.  Yet  even  in  the  conversational 
parts  of  the  dialogues  Plato  does  not  always  imitate  closely 
the  style  of  another,  and  his  own  style  appears  in  all  except 
small  parts  of  his  works.  He  writes  simply  and  easily, 
without  any  of  the  pompous  ornament  of  rhetoric.  His 
language  is  the  language  of  every-day  life,  ennobled  only 
by  his  exquisite  good  taste.  Common  things  he  calls  by 
their  common  names,  and  his  many  poetical  words  and  ex- 
pressions are  used  as  they  were  used  in  the  conversation  of 
cultivated  Athenians  of  his  day ;  for  every  educated  man 
knew  the  poets,  and  the  slightest  reference  to  Homer  or 
Pindar  was  understood  by  every  one.  Plato  uses  no  tech- 
nical expressions  to  make  his  work  seem  scientific.  He 
aims  at  clearness  and  avoids  all  words  his  readers  may  not 
understand.  His  phrases  are  sometimes  short  and  some- 
times long,  but  always  simple.  He  does  not  even  avoid 
slight  grammatical  incorrectness,  such  as  is  common  in 
conversation.     When  he  is  raised  by  enthusiasm  above  the 


-. 


PLATO  309 

conversational  tone  he  does  not  become  oratorical,  but 
rather  poetic  and  lyric.  His  most  distinguishing  quality 
as  a  writer  is  grace,  which  never  leaves  him  either  in  the 
simplest  talk  or  in  the  highest  nights  of  poetic  fancy. 

The  beginning  of  the  Phaedrus  is  a  good  example  of 
simple  conversational  style  and  also  of  the  easy  and  natural 
The  begin-  manner  in  which  some  of  the  dialogues  are  in- 
ning of  the  troduced.  There  are  only  two  characters,  Soc- 
Phaedrus.  ra^es  and  Phaedrus  : 1 

Socrates.  My  dear  Phaedrus,  whence  come  you,  and  whither  are 
you  going  ? 

Phcedrus.  I  have  come  from  Lysias,  the  son  of  Cephalus,  and  I 
am  going  to  take  a  walk  outside  the  wall,  for  I  have  been  sitting 
with  him  the  whole  morning;  and  our  common  friend  Acumenus 
tells  me  that  it  is  much  more  refreshing  to  walk  in  the  open  air  than 
to  be  shut  up  in  a  cloister. 

Soc.  There  he  is  right.  Lysias,  then,  I  suppose,  was  in  the 
town  ? 

Phcedr.  Yes,  he  was  staying  with  Epicrates,  here  at  the  house  of 
Morychus ;  that  house  which  is  near  the  temple  of  Olympian  Zeus. 

Soc.  And  how  did  he  entertain  yju  ?  Can  I  be  wrong  in  think- 
ing that  Lysias  gave  you  a  feast  of  discourse  ? 

Phcedr.  You  shall  hear,  if  you  can  spare  time  to  accompany  me. 

Soc.  And  should  I  not  deem  the  conversation  of  you  and  Lysias 
"a  thing  of  higher  import,"  as  I  may  say  in  the  words  of  Pindar, 
"  than  any  business  "  ? 

Phcedr.  Will  you  go  on  ? 

Soc.  And  will  you  go  on  with  the  narration  ? 

Phaedrus  then  says  that  Lysias  delivered  a  discourse  on 
a  question  of  love,  and  that  he,  Phaedrus,  has  been  studying 
it  and  will  try  to  tell  Socrates  the  substance  of  it.  Socrates 
banteringly  accuses  him  of  having  learned  it  by  heart  and 
being  eager  to  repeat  it : 

Phcedr.  I  see  that  you  will  not  let  me  off  until  I  speak  in  some 
fashion  or  other;  verily,  therefore,  my  best  plan  is  to  speak  as  I 
best  can. 

1  Jowett's  translation. 


310  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Soc.  A  very  true  remark,  that  of  yours. 

Phcedr.  I  will  do  as  I  say ;  but  believe  me,  Socrates,  I  did  not 
learn  the  very  words — Oh,  no ;  nevertheless,  I  have  a  general  notion 
of  what  he  said;  and  will  give  you  a  summary  of  the  points  in  which 
the  lover  differed  from  the  non-lover.  Let  me  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning. 

Soc.  Yes,  my  sweet  one;  but  you  must  first  of  all  show  what 
you  have  in  your  left  hand  under  your  cloak,  for  that  roll,  as  I 
suspect,  is  the  actual  discourse.  Now,  much  as  I  love  you,  I  would 
not  have  you  suppose  that  I  am  going  to  have  your  memory  exer- 
cised at  my  expense,  if  you  have  Lysias  himself  here. 

Socrates  and  Phaedrus  then  go  and  sit  down  under  a 
plane-tree,  and  before  the  roll  is  read  they  talk  about  the 
story  that  Boreas  carried  off  the  nymph  Ori- 
of  Er^  thyia  from  that  very  spot. 

One  of  the  most  famous  of  Plato's  myths  is 
the  story  of  the  Armenian  Er,  who  died  and  came  to  life 
again  after  having  seen  what  befell  the  souls  of  the  dead : l 

He  said  that  when  his  soul  left  the  body  he  went  on  a  journey 
with  a  great  company,  and  that  they  came  to  a  mysterious  place 
where  there  were  two  openings  in  the  earth;  they  were  near  to- 
gether, and  over  against  them  there  were  two  other  openings  in  the 
heaven  above.  In  the  intermediate  space  there  were  judges  seated, 
who  commanded  the  just,  after  they  had  given  judgment  on  them 
and  had  bound  their  sentences  in  front  of  them,  to  ascend  by  the 
heavenly  way  on  the  right  hand;  and  in  like  manner  the  unjust 
were  bidden  by  them  to  descend  by  the  lower  way  on  the  left  hand ; 
these  also  bore  the  symbols  of  their  deeds,  but  fastened  on  their 
backs.  He  drew  near,  and  they  told  him  that  he  was  to  be  the 
messenger  who  would  carry  the  report  of  the  other  world  to  men, 
and  they  bade  him  hear  and  see  all  that  was  to  be  heard  and  seen  in 
that  place.  Then  he  beheld  and  saw  on  one  side  the  souls  depart- 
ing at  either  opening  of  heaven  and  earth  when  sentence  had  been 
given  on  them;  and  at  the  two  other  openings  other  souls,  some 
ascending  out  of  the  earth  dusty  and  worn  with  travel,  some  descend- 
ing out  of  heaven  clean  and  bright.  And  arriving  ever  and  anon, 
they  seemed  to  have  come  from  a  long  journey,  and  they  went  forth 

1  Republic,  x,  p.  614  b  and  following;  Jowett's  translation. 


PLATO  311 

with  gladness  into  the  meadow,  where  they  encamped  as  at  a  fes- 
tival; and  those  who  knew  one  another  embraced  and  conversed, 
the  souls  which  came  from  earth  curiously  enquiring  about  the 
things  above,  and  the  souls  which  came  from  heaven,  about  the 
things  beneath.  And  they  told  one  another  of  what  had  happened 
by  the  way,  those  from  below  weeping  and  sorrowing  at  the  remem- 
brance of  the  things  which  they  had  endured  and  seen  in  their 
journey  beneath  the  earth  (now  the  journey  lasted  a  thousand  years), 
while  those  from  above  were  describing  heavenly  delights  and  vi- 
sions of  inconceivable  beauty.  The  story,  Glaucon,  would  take  too 
long  to  tell ;  but  the  sum  was  this :  He  said  that  for  every  wrong 
which  they  had  done  to  any  one  they  suffered  tenfold — that  is  to 
say,  once  in  every  hundred  years — the  thousand  years  answering  to 
the  hundred  years  which  are  reckoned  as  the  life  of  man. 

The  whole  myth  of  Er  is  far  too  long  to  be  quoted  here. 
It  gives  in  detail  Plato's  views  of  the  life  after  death,  with 
the  rewards  of  the  good  and  the  punishments  of  the  wicked, 
tells  how  the  souls  contemplate  the  ideas  existing  in  their 
purity,  not  such  copies  of  them  as  we  see  and  know  on 
earth,  and  how  each  soul,  before  returning  to  earthly  life, 
is  made  to  forget  what  it  has  seen,  so  that  earthly  men  need 
the  discipline  of  philosophy  to  make  them  recollect  the 
truth.  But  even  the  brief  extract  here  given  may  show 
the  vivid  imagination  and  the  clear  descriptive  power  of 
Plato. 

It  would  be  almost  impossible  to  overestimate  Plato's 
influence  upon  subsequent  thought.  The  description  of 
the  ideal  state,  in  the  Republic,  has  given  rise  to  many  im- 
itations, the  most  famous  of  which  is  More's  Utopia,  and 
the  discussion  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  in  the  Plmdo, 
is  the  earliest  known  attempt  to  establish  upon  a  scientific 
basis  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  Plato's  conception  of 
man  as  a  social  or  political  being  is  Attic,  but 

his  idealism  and  his  striving  after  the  absolute 
influence.  ,«,-.?  i 

belong  to  all  mankind,  and  even  prepare  the 

way  in  a  measure  for  Christianity.     His  intellectual  faith  is 

very  different  from  the  religion  of  the  heart,  from  Christian 

21 


312        .  GREEK  LITERATURE 

charity  and  humility,  yet  some  of  his  expressions  sound 
almost  like  Christian  teachings,  and  his  works  did  not  fail 
to  influence  the  thoughts  of  the  great  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity. As  a  literary  artist  he  reigns  supreme  in  the  realm 
of  dialogue.  He  is  said  to  have  had  predecessors,  Alex- 
amenus  of  Teos  and  Zeno  of  Elea,  and  he  had  many  succes- 
sors, but  none  of  them  all  attained  his  power,  variety,  and 
grace. 

After  Plato's  death  his  disciples  continued  to  meet  in 
the  garden  of  the  Academy,  and  the  "  Academy  "  became 
an  organized  school,  with  a  chosen  leader  or 
"  scholarch."  Speusippus,  Plato's  nephew  and 
heir,  was  the  first,  followed  in  order  by  Xenoc- 
rates,  Polemo,  and  Crates.  These  together  form  the  "  Old 
Academy."  As  philosophers  they  followed  Plato,  modify- 
ing his  teachings  by  giving  up  some  points  and  by  adopting 
some  things  from  other  schools.  In  general,  they  were  not 
very  important  either  as  philosophers  or  as  writers.  Speu. 
sippus  (about  393  to  339  b.  c.)  wrote  dialogues  which  seem 
to  have  been,  to  judge  by  the  fragments,  pleasing  and  grace- 
ful in  style.  He  substituted  the  ten  fundamental  ideas  or 
pairs  of  Pythagoras  (finite  and  infinite,  odd  and  even,  male 
and  female,  etc.)  for  the  Platonic  ideas,  which  are  infinite 
in  number.  Xenocrates  of  Chalcedon  became  scholarch 
in  339,  and  died  in  314  B.  c.  He  wrote  treatises  and  some 
poems.  The  fragments  show  the  influence  of  Pythagoras. 
Polemo  and  Crates  appear  to  have  been  preachers  of  morals 
rather  than  writers.  Crantor,  born  at  Soli,  in  Cilicia,  about 
335  b.  c,  was  a  pupil  of  Polemo,  but  died  before  his  master. 
He  wrote  a  number  of  works  in  prose  and  verse,  the  most 
celebrated  of  which  was  a  treatise  On  Sorrow,  a  sort  of 
consolation  or  encouragement  to  those  in  grief,  from  which 
later  writers  quote  freely.  But  the  real  inheritor  of  Plato's 
greatness  was  an  independent  pupil,  the  founder  of  a  new 
school,  Aristotle. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ARISTOTLE-THE   PERIPATETICS 

Aristotle,  384-322  b.  c. — The  life  and  times  of  Aristotle — His 
works — Preservation  and  publication  of  his  works — His  theories — Logic, 
Rhetoric,  Poetics — Ethics — The  Politics — Works  on  natural  science — 
Metaphysics — Aristotle  as  a  writer — The  Peripatetic  School — Theo- 
phrastus,  about  372-287  b.  c— Eudemus,  about  320  b.  c. — Strato,  (?)  to 
about  270  b.  c. — Lycon,  300-226  b.  c. — Ariston,  about  275  b.  c. — Hierony- 
mus  of  Rhodes,  about  275  b.  c. — Critolaus,  about  240-157  (?)  b.  c. — 
Clearchus,  about  300  b.  c. 

Aeistotle  was  born  in  384  b.  c.  at  Stagira,  a  Greek 
colony  in  Macedonia.  His  father,  Nicomachus,  was  the 
physician  of  King  Amyntas  II,  and  a  man  of  some  wealth. 
In  367,  after  his  father's  death,  Aristotle  went  to  Athens, 
where  he  studied  at  first  under  Isocrates,  but  became  a 
pupil  of  Plato  after  365,  when  Plato  returned 
*  .e  °  .  from  Sicily.     For  eighteen  years  he  was  a  mem- 

ber of  Plato's  school,  and,  in  spite  of  his  intel- 
lectual independence,  no  one  was  a  more  ardent  admirer  of 
the  master  than  he.  After  Plato's  death,  in  347,  he  went 
with  Xenocrates  to  Atarneus,  in  Mysia,  where  their  fellow 
pupil  Hermias  was  ruler.  Here  Aristotle  married  Pythias, 
the  niece  or  sister  of  Hermias.  When  Hermias  was  over- 
thrown, in  344,  Aristotle  went  to  Mytilene  and  then  to 
Athens.  In  342  he  was  called  to  the  Macedonian  court  to 
undertake  the  education  of  the  young  Alexander,  and  he 
remained  here  until  the  beginning  of  Alexander's  expedi- 
tion to  Asia,  in  335.  Aristotle  had  great  influence  with  his 
royal  pupil,  who  became  much  interested  in  Homer  and  in 

313 


314  GREEK  LITERATURE 

matters  of  science.  For  ten  years  after  teacher  and  pupil 
had  left  Macedonia,  Alexander  continued  to  aid  in  Aris- 
totle's researches  by  sending  him  large  sums  of  money  as 
well  as  rare  animals  and  other  scientific  curiosities.  In  335 
Aristotle  went  to  Athens  and  opened  his  school  at  the 
"  Lyceum,"  one  of  the  gymnasiums  of  the  city.  His  school 
was  therefore  called  the  "  Lyceum,"  or,  from  his  custom  of 
giving  instruction  while  walking  about,  the  "  Peripatetic  " 
School.  Here  he  taught  rhetoric  as  well  as  philosophy 
with  great  success.  His  instruction  was  given  in  the  form 
of  lectures  and  of  conversation,  and  his  pupils  were  at  the 
same  time  his  friends,  taking  part  in  social  banquets  such 
as  had  been  customary  at  the  Academy  when  Aristotle  him- 
self was  one  of  Plato's  pupils.  The  death  of  Alexander 
made  life  at  Athens  dangerous  for  his  friends,  and  Aristotle 
was  accused  of  impiety  and  obliged  to  leave  the  city.  He 
retired  to  Chalcis,  in  Eubcea,  where  he  died  of  disease  in 
the  following  year  (322  b.  a). 

Aristotle  lived  at  the  time  when  the  separate  independ- 
ence of  the  Greek  cities,  with   its  intensity,  narrowness  in 
some  respects,  and  fervent  local  patriotism,  was 
Times  o  giving  way  to  the  Macedonian  empire,  which 

carried  a  modified  Hellenism  to  distant  regions. 
After  Aristotle  Greek  prose  was  written  in  the  "  common 
dialect "  known  to  all  who  spoke  Greek  in  the  wide  realm 
over  which  Greek  culture  was  carried  by  the  Macedonian 
conquest;  but  Aristotle  still  writes  Attic  Greek,  though 
with  some  slight  indications  of  what  the  common  dialect 
is  to  be.  Though  still  Attic  in  his  training  and  his  feel- 
ing, Aristotle  is  already  beginning  to  be  cosmopolitan.  As 
a  thinker  and  teacher  he  is  the  final  and  complete  embodi- 
ment of  the  old  classical  life  and  thought.  His  works  em- 
brace what  was  known  by  the  Greeks  when  Greece  was 
merged  in  the  broader  life  of  empires,  and  his  influence 
upon  later  generations  was  in  part  the  result  of  the  great- 
ness of  the  Macedonian  empire  which  arose  during  his  life. 


ARISTOTLE  315 

That  empire  was  divided  among  the  successors  of  Alexan- 
der, and  they  were  overcome  by  Eome.  The  Eoman  great- 
ness was  followed  by  barbarian  incursions  and  the  confu- 
sion of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  Aristotle's  fame  lived  on,  and 
Dante,  the  great  poet  of  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  calls 
him  "  the  master  of  those  who  know." 

Aristotle's  works  were  more  numerous  and  more  various 

than  those   of  any  previous  writer.     He   composed  some 

poems,  speeches,  and  letters  which  may  be  dis- 

ns  o  e  s       regarded,  and  his  other  works  may  be  divided 

works 

into  three  classes  :  First,  dialogues,  in  the  man- 
ner of  Plato,  intended  to  interest  and  instruct  even  those 
who  were  not  deeply  interested  in  philosophy ;  second, 
learned  collections  of  materials  upon  which  theoretical 
speculations  could  be  based ;  and  third,  philosophical  and 
scientific  treatises.  Of  the  dialogues  only  fourteen  titles 
and  some  few  fragments  remain.  It  is  evident  that  they 
treated  of  philosophical  subjects  for  the  most  part,  though 
one  at  least,  the  Gryllus,  was  on  rhetoric.  The  style  of  these 
dialogues  was  much  admired ;  but  we  can  now  judge  of  it 
only  by  what  other  writers  tell  us,  not  by  our  own  knowl- 
edge. The  second  class  of  works  was  very  numerous. 
Aristotle's  interest  was  not  confined  to  one  class  of  phe- 
nomena, but  embraced  the  whole  world  of  Nature  and  of 
human  history.  He  studied  the  constitutions  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-eight  Greek  and  foreign  cities,  and  published 
a  treatise  on  each  of  them ;  he  made  a  list  of  Pythian  vic- 
tors who  had  been  successful  in  the  games  at  Delphi ;  he 
wrote  Didascalice — lists  of  theatrical  performances  at  Athens 
containing  the  names  of  the  dramas,  the  authors,  choregi, 
prizes,  etc. ;  he  made  a  summary  of  previous  works  on 
oratory  so  excellent  that,  according  to  Cicero,  nobody  any 
longer  read  the  originals;  and  many  other  works  containing 
information  on  all  sorts  of  subjects  were  attributed  to  him. 
The  vast  number  of  these  works  makes  it  evident  that 
they  can  not  all  have  been  written  entirely  by  Aristotle, 


> 


316  GREEK  LITERATURE 

but  were  probably  written  at  his  suggestion  by  his  pupils, 
with  more  or  less  help  from  him.  Just  how  much  of  the 
The  Consti-  work  was,  his  own  can  not  be  determined,  and 
tution  of  the  proportion  was  probably  not  the  same  in 

Athens.  ^he  different  treatises.     Of  all  these  works  but 

one,  the  Constitution,  of  Athens,  is  preserved.  A  papyrus 
manuscript  of  this  was  found  in  Egypt,  and  first  pub- 
lished in  1891.  It  consists  of  two  parts  :  First,  the  history 
of  constitutional  changes  at  Athens  ;  and  second,  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  constitution  as  it  existed  at  the  time  (328  to  325 
B.  c).  The  first  part  is  almost  entirely  preserved,  but  the 
second  is  much  mutilated.  All  the  other  extant  works  of 
Aristotle,  nearly  fifty  in  number,  belong  to  the  class  of 
philosophical  treatises. 

According  to  a  story  told  on  good  authority,  Aristotle 
left  at  his  death  a  great  number  of  unpublished  manu- 
scripts to  his  pupil  Theophrastus,  who  died  in 
tion  and  pub-  ^7,  leaving  them  to  Xeleus  of  Skepsis.  At 
lication  of  Skepsis  they  were  hidden  in  a  vault  and 
Aristotle's  neglected  until,  in  the  second  century  B.  c, 
they  were  bought  by  Apellicon  of  Teos  and 
taken  to  Athens.  In  78  B.  c.  Sulla  took  Athens  and  sent 
the  manuscripts  to  Eome,  where  they  were  published  by 
the  grammarian  Tyrranion  and  the  philosopher  Andronicus 
of  Rhodes.  These  are  the  works  preserved  to  us,  the  Con- 
stitution of  Athens  alone  being  of  a  different  class.  Some  of 
these  are  apparently  little  more  than  the  unfinished  notes 
for  Aristotle's  lectures,  while  others  seem  to  have  been 
intended  for  publication  in  something  like  their  present 
form.  Probably  all  of  these  works  were  supplemented  and 
emended  by  the  first  publishers,  and  later  editors  no  doubt 
made  further  changes.  Nevertheless,  one  master  mind  is 
present  through  them  all.  These  works  seem  to  have  been 
intended  not  for  the  general  public,  but  for  Aristotle's  inner 
circle  of  pupils.  Such  works  the  ancients  called  esoteric  or 
acroamatic;  the  works  intended  for  more  general  reading 


ARISTOTLE  317 

were  called  exoteric,  and  consisted  of  the  lost  dialogues  and 
collections  of  historical  and  scientific  facts  and  the  like. 
The  extant  works  enable  ns  to  judge  of  Aristotle's  vast 
knowledge  and  of  his  philosophy  far  better  than  of  his  style. 

Aristotle,  like  Plato,  believes  that  science  has  to  do  with 
general  ideas,  but  he  does  not  agree  with  Plato  in  giving  to 
Some  of  ideas   an  independent   existence.     He   thinks 

Aristotle's  ideas  exist  only  in  and  through  phenomena, 
theories.  ^or  ^oes  j^  subordinate  all  other  ideas  to  the 

idea  of  Good,  as  Plato  does.  He  regards  the  art  of  dia- 
lectic, which  Plato  considers  the  only  scientific  method,  as 
insufficient  because  it  teaches  only  what  is  probable,  not 
what  is  necessarily  true.  Real  knowledge  can  be  based 
only  on  facts,  and  therefore  Aristotle  was  indefatigable  in 
collecting  facts  of  all  sorts.  On  the  basis  of  these  facts  he 
founded  his  theories,  and  from  his  observations  he  tried  to 
discover  the  nature  of  everything  that  exists.  He  had  a 
theory  for  each  branch  of  science,  defining  what  was  the 
subject-matter  and  what  the  principles  of  each;  and  hi3 
works  treat,  or  were  to  treat,  of  nearly  everything  of  which 
mankind  had  any  knowledge  in  his  day. 

The  method  of  knowledge  is  taught  in  a  group  of 
writings  called  the  Organon,  or  "  instrument "  of  reasoning, 
Logic,  which  have  to  do  with  logic,  and  comprise  the 

Rhetoric  Categories,  On  Expression,  the  Analytics,  and 

the  Poetics,  ^g  Topics,  in  connection  with  which  Rhetoric 
is  treated  scientifically  as  a  proper  means  of  instruction 
and  persuasion.  Aristotle,  proceeding  from  the  dialectic 
of  Socrates  and  Plato,  advanced  to  logic — from  the  practise 
of  reasoning  to  a  scientific  theory  of  its  processes.  He 
does  not  call  it  "  logic,"  but  "  analytic."  He  invented  the 
syllogism,  and  worked  out  the  analysis  of  the  deductive 
process  of  reasoning,  the  process  which  leads  from  a  gen- 
eral to  a  particular  statement :  for  instance,  All  men  are 
mortal ;  I  am  a  man  ;  therefore  I  am  mortal.  The  induc- 
tive process,  leading  from  the  particular  to  the  general,  he 


318  GREEK  LITERATURE 

did  not  establish  so  perfectly.  Aristotle's  logic  was  the 
most  original  part  of  his  philosophical  system,  and  has 
remained  until  our  own  times  the  universally  acknowledged 
theory  of  correct  reasoning.  The  Poetics  contains  a  theory 
of  epic  and  tragic  poetry  as  varieties  of  imitation,  with 
much  information  about  the  beginnings  of  tragedy.  The 
works  on  comedy  and  other  kinds  of  poetry  were  apparently 
never  written,  though  Aristotle  intended  to  write  them. 

The  Nicomachian  Ethics  is  the  title  of  Aristotle's  work 

on  ethics,  perhaps  because  it  was  edited  by  his  son  Nicom- 

achus.    The  Eudemian  Ethics  is  not  the  work 

fthicT16'8  of  Aristotle>  but  of  his  PuPn  Eudemus;  but 
Books  V,  VI,  and  VII  of  the  Nicomachian 
Ethics  are  probably  borrowed  from  the  Eudemian  Ethics, 
being  inserted  by  an  editor  to  fill  the  gap  between  Book  IV 
and  Book  VIII,  a  gap  which  may  be  caused  by  the  loss  of 
part  of  the  original  manuscript ;  though  it  is  quite  as  likely 
that  Aristotle  wrote  Books  I  to  IV  and  then  Books  VIII 
to  X,  expecting  to  write  the  intervening  books  at  some 
later  time,  but  never  carried  out  his  intention.  The  Great 
Ethics,  by  some  later  member  of  the  school,  covers  much 
the  same  ground.  The  end  of  all  action,  Aristotle  teaches, 
is  happiness ;  and  man's  happiness  consists  in  the  good  of 
the  soul — that  is,  in  virtue  or  moral  and  intellectual  per- 
fection. Moral  virtue  is  not  inborn;  nor  is  it,  as  Plato 
thought,  a  direct  result  of  knowledge.  It  is  a  habit  of  the 
soul,  acquired  by  the  exercise  of  free  will  in  repeating  the 
same  kind  of  action.  Each  particular  virtue  is  a  mean 
between  two  extremes,  as  courage  is  between  cowardice  on 
the  one  hand  and  "rashness  on  the  other.  The  most  perfect 
happiness  Aristotle  finds  in  the  proper  activity  of  the  rea- 
son, the  divine  part  of  the  soul. 

The  Greeks  found  it  difficult  to  conceive  of  man  other- 
wise than  as  a  member  of  a  community  or  state,  and  Aris- 
totle is  the  first  who  treated  of  ethics  apart  from  politics. 
Yet  he  too  regarded  ethics  as  only  a  branch  of  politics. 


ARISTOTLE  319 

"  Man,"  he  said,  "  is  a  social  creature,"  and  he  discusses  his 
relation  to  the  state  and  the  different  kinds  of  governments 
in  the  Politics.  He  describes  Monarchy,  Aris- 
tocracy and  a  Constitutional  Government,  and 
the  three  corruptions  of  these,  Tyranny,  Oligarchy,  and 
Democracy.  His  remarks  on  these  and  on  revolutions  are 
of  great  interest,  showing  much  historical  knowledge  and 
political  insight.  His  ideal  state  is  a  community  of  some 
twenty  thousand  citizens,  each  of  whom  is  to  be  educated 
by  the  state,  and  to  be  a  landowner  of  moderate  wealth,  so 
that  he  shall  be  free  from  all  cares  except  those  of  state. 
Each  citizen  is  to  have  a  share  in  the  government,  and  no 
citizen  is  to  be  an  artisan  or  tradesman.  Slavery  he  re- 
gards as  necessary  in  order  that  the  citizens  may  be  at  lei- 
sure; but  the  proper  foundation  of  slavery  he  finds  in  a 
natural  superiority  of  the  master  to  the  slave.  Plato,  in  his 
ideal  republic,  did  away  with  the  family  and  with  private 
property,  making  everything  belong  io  the  state,  but  Aris- 
totle regards  the  family  as  the  basis  of  society.  His  ideal 
state  is  not,  like  Plato's,  a  sort  of  military  convent,  but 
rather  a  combination  of  the  good  points  of  various  forms  of 
government  known  to  the  Greeks.  In  his  Politics  as  in  his 
Ethics  Aristotle  finds  that  excellence  is  a  mean  between 
two  extremes. 

In  his  books  on  natural  science  Aristotle  treats  of  the 
world  and  its  parts,  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  various  as- 
Works  on  tronomical  phenomena,  and  also  of  life  and 
natural  living  things.     Every  living  thing  has  a  soul, 

science.  since  it  has  a  principle  of  life  and  growth,  and 

the  soul,  which  he  speaks  of  as  the  "form"  of  that  "mat- 
ter "  which  we  call  the  body,  can  not  exist  independently  of 
the  body ;  but  since  man  alone  has  a  reasoning  soul,  there 
is  evidently  something  in  his  soul  not  to  be  found  in  the 
souls  of  plants  or  animals,  and  this  something,  the  Eeason, 
is  divine.  When  the  body  (and  with  it  the  soul  as  its  prin- 
ciple of  life)  dies,  the  reason  departs  and  returns  to  God. 


320  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Other  books  treat  of  animals,  their  habits  and  peculiarities, 
and  are  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  works  on  natural  his- 
tory. About  five  hundred  species  are  mentioned  by  Aris- 
totle.  The  Metaphysics,  so  called  merely  be- 
cause the  editor  placed  it  after  (meta)  the 
Physics,  is  concerned  with  what  Aristotle  called  the  "  First 
Philosophy,"  the  discussion  of  the  origin  and  nature  of 
knowledge  and  existence.  This  work  appears  to  be  put  to- 
gether from  notes  left  behind  by  Aristotle  at  his  death. 

As  a  thinker  Aristotle  has  had  an  immense  and  abiding 
influence,  and  many  of  the  expressions  still  used  in  philos- 
ophy and  in  some  other  branches  of  science  are  derived 
from   him.     Of   his   qualities  as  a  writer  we  can  hardly 
judge,  as  his  dialogues,  in  which  his  literary 
..  qualities  seem  to  have  been  shown  to  the  best 

advantage,  have  been  lost.  His  Hymn  to  Vir- 
tue, addressed  to  Hermias,  is  a  poem  of  some  merit,  but 
hardly  a  great  work.  In  the  Constitution  of  Athens  the 
style  is  clear  and  simple,  but  not  remarkable  for  beauty. 
In  the  other  works  the  style  varies,  and  probably  many  of  its 
peculiarities  are  due  to  the  ancient  editors.  There  are 
many  technical  expressions,  and  the  language  is  often  hard 
to  understand.  Still,  the  expressions  are  those  of  a  man 
who  loves  conciseness  and  accuracy,  who  aims  at  precision 
rather  than  at  beauty.  Only  rarely  does  there  seem  to  be 
any  conscious  care  for  style  or  literary  effect,  but  in  some 
passages,  which  were  probably  more  completely  prepared 
for  publication  than  the  rest,  there  is  a  certain  austere  elo- 
quence. But  Aristotle's  greatness  and  his  influence  upon 
the  world  rest  not  upon  his  stylistic  qualities,  but  upon  the 
vast  extent  of  his  knowledge  and  the  original- 

™lT:Z!  "y and  dePth  of  his  thousht- 

The  school  of  Aristotle — the  Peripatetic 
School— followed  in  the  steps  of  the  master,  eagerly  inves- 
tigating natural  phenomena,  historical  subjects,  and  all 
other  matters  open  to  human  knowledge.     The  first  schol- 


THE  PERIPATETICS  321 

arch  was  Theophrastus,  from  Eresus  in  Lesbos.  He  was 
born  about  372  and  died  in  287  b.  c,  leaving  his  property 
to  the  school,  which  thus  obtained,  like  the  Academy,  a 
permanent  home.  He  was  a  prolific  writer  on 
T^eo\  philosophy,  natural  history,  and  rhetoric    Of 

pnrastus.  x  k-     ,         ^      \  i    ^^ 

over  two   hundred  works  there  now  remain, 

besides  fragments,  two  complete  treatises,  Researches  on 
Plants,  in  nine  books,  and  Causes  of  Plants,  in  six  books, 
and  a  brief  treatise  called  the  Characters,  which  seems  in 
its  present  form  to  be  an  abbreviated  edition  of  a  larger 
work.  The  Researches  on  Plants  is  for  the  most  part  a  de- 
scription of  a  great  number  of  species,  chiefly  the  result  of 
personal  observation.  The  Causes  of  Plants  is  an  attempt 
to  account  for  the  differences  between  species.  Both  works 
give,  in  simple  style,  a  great  deal  of  interesting  information. 
The  Characters  describes  thirty-one  different  kinds  of  men, 
as  the  talkative  man,  the  flatterer,  etc.,  whose  characters 
seem  to  be  drawn  rather  from  the  comedies  of  Menander 
than  from  life.  Theophrastus  exercised  great  influence  dur- 
ing his  life,  and  was  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  Aristotle.  Other  early  Peripatetics 
Datetics611"  were  ^udemus  of  Rhodes,  chiefly  occupied  with 
the  hirtojy  nf  dootrinn^  and  Strato  of  Lampsa- 
cus,  the  second  scholarch  of  the  school  (from  287-269  b.  a), 
who  was  ajphysieist.  Strato's  successor  was  Lycon,  scholarch 
from  269-225  b.  c,  who  was  in  turn  succeeded  by  Ariston 
of  Ceos,  who  seems  to  have  written  a  history  of  the  school. 
Critolaus  of  Phaselis  succeeded  Ariston.  Hieronymus  of 
Rhodes,  a  contemporary  of  Lycon,  seems  to  have  been  a 
voluminous  and  superficial  writer.  Clearchus  of  Soli  is 
said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  Aristotle,  but  is  probably  of  a 
somewhat  later  time.  He  was  the  author  of  biographies  of 
philosophers.  Several  writers  who  did  not  devote  them- 
selves to  philosophy  were  trained  in  the  Peripatetic  School, 
and  we  shall  meet  with  them  in  their  proper  places. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

ATTIC   ORATORS 

Antiphon,  about  480-411  b.  c—  Antiphon's  works  of  different 
classes — Andoeides,  about  445  to  after  391  b.  c. — Lysias,  born  between 
450  and  440,  died  about  380  b.  c— Orations,  style,  and  composition  of 
Lysias— Isaeus,  about  410-350  (?)  b.  c. 

The  earliest  Attic  orator  any  part  of  whose  works  has 
been  preserved  is  Antiphon,  the  son  of  Sophilus,  of  the 

deme  of  Rhamnus.  He  was  born  about  480 
AntL°h  B- c*'  an^  was  therefore  a  little  younger  than 

Gorgias  (see  page  294).  Of  his  life  little  is 
known  except  its  ending.  He  was  one  of  the  leading  spirits 
of  the  conspiracy  of  the  Four  Hundred,  though  he  kept 
himself  as  far  as  he  could  in  the  background,  and  when  the 
democracy  was  restored  in  411  B.  c.  he  was  accused  of  trea- 
son and  put  to  death.  He  was,  says  Thucydides  (viii,  68), 
"a  man  inferior  in  merit  to  none  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  abler  than  any  to  invent  plans  and  to  say  what  he 
thought.  He  did  not  come  forward  in  the  assembly,  nor, 
if  he  could  avoid  it,  in  any  other  public  arena.  To  the 
multitude,  who  were  suspicious  of  his  great  abilities,  he 
was  an  object  of  dislike ;  but  there  was  no  man  who  could 
do  more  for  any  who  consulted  him,  whether  their  business 
lay  in  the  courts  of  justice  or  in  the  assembly.  And  when 
the  Four  Hundred  were  overthrown  and  exposed  to  the 
vengeance  of  the  people,  and  he,  being  accused  of  taking 
part  in  the  plot,  had  to  speak  in  their  behalf,  his  defense 
322 


ATTIC  ORATORS  323 

was  undoubtedly  the  best  ever  made  by  any  man  tried  on  a 
capital  charge  down  to  my  time." 

Numerous  works  passed  in  antiquity  under  the  name 
of  Antiphon,  works   intended   for   oratorical   instruction, 

speeches,  and  three  treatises,  On  Concord,  On 
torkf011'8       T^th,  and  Politicus   (see  page   296).      The 

most  important  works  of  the  first  class  were 
the  collection  of  Introductions  and  Perorations  and  the 
Tetralogies.  The  former  is  lost,  but  its  contents  are  evident  • 
from  the  title.  A  speech  in  court  consists  of  an  introduc- 
tion, a  narrative,  a  discussion  or  argument  based  upon  the 
narrative,  and  a  peroration.  The  narrative  and  the  discus- 
sion are  as  various  as  the  cases  to  be  argued,  but  the  intro- 
ductions and  perorations  may  conform  more  to  rules.  From 
the  time  of  Antiphon  the  introduction  regularly  contained 
remarks  about  the  inexperience  and  lack  of  ability  of  the 
speaker,  and  the  peroration  also  consisted  more  or  less  of 
stock  phrases.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that  the  introduc- 
tions of  several  extant  orations  by  different  authors  are 
almost  identical.  The  collection  of  Introductions  and 
Perorations  was,  then,  intended  to  teach  Antiphon's  pupils 
how  to  begin  and  end  their  speeches  acceptably,  and  its 
precepts  were  followed  by  many  of  the  forensic  orators 
of  Athens. 

The  Tetralogies,  three  of  which  are  preserved,  are  groups 
of  four  speeches  arranged  in  this  order :  accusation,  defense, 

reply  of  the  accuser,  reply  of  the  defendant, 
e   e  ra  o-     These  are  evidently  not  real  speeches,  but  are 

intended  as  examples  for  instruction.  Like 
the  real  speeches  of  Antiphon  preserved  to  us,  they  all  have 
to  do  with  cases  of  homicide.  The  reason  for  this  is  un- 
doubtedly that  Antiphon's  works  were  arranged  by  the 
editors  according  to  subjects,  and  the  chapter  or  book  con- 
taining speeches  on  homicide  happens  to  be  preserved,  per- 
haps because  it  was  the  most  famous.  In  the  same  way 
the  extant  speeches  of  Isseus  all  relate  to  wills  and  inherit- 


324  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ance.  In  the  Tetralogies  Antiphon  gives  examples  of  argu- 
ments applied  to  special  imaginary  cases,  with  appeals  to 
the  prejudices  and  feelings  of  the  jury.  He  shows  great 
good  sense  and  judgment.  His  language  is  that  of  daily 
life,  but  is  so  managed  as  to  be  exact,  clear,  and  vigorous. 
Synonyms  are  carefully  distinguished,  and  antitheses  are 
common,   especially   the    opposition    of    appearance    and 

reality.     Three  real  speeches  by  Antiphon  are 

preserved  to  us,  the  most  important  and  inter- 
esting of  which  is  On  the  Murder  of  Herodes.  A  citizen  of 
Mytilene  was  traveling  with  Herodes,  who  disappeared  at 
Methymna.  The  Mytilenean  is  accused  of  having  murdered 
his  companion,  and  the  speech  is  his  defense.  Here  the 
style  is  less  concise  than  in  the  Tetralogies,  there  is  much 
narrative,  and  much  time  is  taken  up  with  testimony ;  but 
with  these  differences,  the  speech  resembles  the  Tetralogies, 
embodying  in  a  real  plea  before  the  court  the  same  prin- 
ciples of  argument  and  arrangement  exhibited  in  the  fic- 
titious speeches  invented  as  examples.  Antiphon's  style  is 
powerful  and  concise,  but  lacks  grace.  He  attains  vigor 
in  argument  and  directness  in  narrative,  but  leaves  the 
impression  of  some  stiffness,  almost  of  harshness.  His 
influence  upon  Thucydides  was  great,  and  it  is  from  him 
that  the  great  historian  derives  much  of  the  vigor  and 
terseness  of  his  style  as  well  as  his  love  of  antitheses  and 
balanced  phrases. 

Andocides,  the  next  in  order  of  the  Attic  orators,  was 
neither  a  teacher  of    oratory  nor  a  professional    speech 

writer,  but  pleaded  only  those  cases  in  which 
-1  J  °  he  was  personally  interested.     He  was  born  at 

Athens  of  a  distinguished  family,  and  as  a 
young  man  spent  his  time,  with  other  young  aristocrats, 
in  pleasure,  political  intrigue,  and  intercourse  with  the 
sophists.  About  420  he  was  suspected  of  having  profaned 
the  mysteries,  and  after  the  mutilation  of  the  Hermae,  in 
415,  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned.     He  escaped  death 


ATTIC  ORATORS  325 

by  informing  against  others,  but  found  it  advisable  to  go 
into  voluntary  exile.  He  traveled  about  on  various  busi- 
ness, and  succeeded  in  making  a  good  deal  of  money. 
Twice,  in  411  and  408,  he  tried,  without  success,  to  be  re- 
stored to  his  native  city.  It  was  in  408  that  he  delivered 
the  speech  On  His  Return.  In  403,  when  a  general  amnesty 
was  decreed,  he  returned  to  Athens,  and  took  an  active 
part  in  politics  as  a  partizan  of  the  democracy,  to  which  he 
had  before  been  opposed.  But  in  399  he  was  accused  of 
impiety,  and  his  speech  On  the  Mysteries  is  his  reply  to  his 
accusers.  He  was  acquitted,  and  in  391  was  one  of  the 
envoys  charged  with  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty  with  Sparta. 
The  speech  On  the  Peace  is  concerned  with  this  matter. 
The  negotiation  was  unsuccessful,  and,  according  to  one 
account,  Andocides  was  banished  once  more.  After  this 
no  more  is  known  of  him. 

His  adventurous  and  troubled  life  gave  Andocides  little 
leisure  for  writing.  Four  speeches  have  come  down  to 
us  under  his  name,  one  of  which,  Against  Alcibiades,  is 

spurious.  The  ancients  knew  only  two  other 
Andocides '      speeches  by  him.     Of  the  three  extant  genuine 

speeches,  the  earliest,  On  His  Return,  imitates 
the  style  of  Antiphon,  and  the  latest,  On  the  Peace,  is 
neither  vigorous  in  thought  nor  clear  in  composition.  The 
speech  On  the  Mysteries  is  interesting  on  account  of  the 
information  it  gives  about  the  mysterious  mutilation  of  the 
Hermae,  though  it  is  doubtful  if  this  information  is  entirely 
trustworthy.  The  narrative  parts  of  the  speech  are  lively 
and  picturesque,  the  arguments  are  skillful,  and  the  style 
easy  and  natural,  though  somewhat  careless.  Andocides 
has  here  given  up  all  imitation  of  Antiphon,  and  advanced 
far  along  the  road  to  the  simplicity  and  grace  which  char- 
acterize the  speeches  of  Lysias ;  but  Andocides  is  not,  like 
Lysias,  a  great  literary  artist.  His  life  shows  that  he 
lacked  stability  and  strength  of  character,  and  his  speeches 
show  that  he  was  without  the  mental  vigor  that  belongs  to 


326  GREEK  LITERATURE 

all  great  orators,  and  the  conscientious  love  of  careful  work 
which  alone  can  produce  perfect  oratory. 

Lysias  was,  unlike  Andocides,  a  professional  writer  of 
speeches,  or  logographer.  He  was  born,  probably,  at  Athens, 
between  450  and  440  b.  c,  though  not  of 
Athenian  parentage.  His  father,  Cephalus, 
was  a  rich  Syracusan  manufacturer  of  armor,  who  trans- 
ferred his  factory,  at  the  suggestion  of  Pericles,  from  Syra- 
cuse to  Athens,  about  450  b.  c,  and  settled  in  a  house  in 
the  Piraeus.  Cephalus,  though  a  mere  metic,  or  resident 
alien,  not  an  Athenian  citizen,  was  the  friend  and  com- 
panion of  the  chief  men  of  the  state,  beloved  and  re- 
spected by  all.  In  Plato's  Republic,  the  scene  of  which  is 
laid  at  his  house,  he  appears  as  a  cultivated,  wise,  and  amiable 
old  man.  Lysias  and  his  two  brothers,  Polemarchus  and 
Euthydemus,  grew  up,  therefore,  among  most  favorable  sur- 
roundings. About  425,  when  he  was  some  fifteen  years  old, 
Lysias  went  with  his  brothers  to  Thurii,  in  Magna  Graecia. 
Here  he  is  said  to  have  studied  rhetoric  under  Tisias  of 
Syracuse,  while  Polemarchus  devoted  himself  to  philosophy. 
After  the  disastrous  failure  of  the  Athenian  expedition 
against  Sicily,  in  413,  life  in  Sicily  and  Magna  Grascia  was 
no  longer  agreeable  for  friends  of  Athens.  Lysias  and  his 
brothers  returned  to  Athens  and  carried  on  the  business 
established  by  their  father,  at  the  same  time  pursuing  their 
favorite  studies.  At  this  time  Lysias  began  to  teach 
rhetoric  and  to  write  speeches. 

In  404  b.  c.  the  Thirty  arrested  Lysias  and  Polemarchus 
and  confiscated  their  large  property.  Lysias  managed  to 
Lysias  and  escape,  but  Polemarchus  was  put  to  death, 
the  Thirty  Lysias  returned  to  the  city  in  403  with  Thrasy- 
Tyrants.  bulus,  who  caused  him  to  be  made  a  citizen  of 

Athens  in  recognition  of  his  generous  contributions  to  the 
popular  party  in  the  struggle  against  the  Thirty.  Lysias 
immediately  made  use  of  the  citizenship  to  bring  suit  against 
Eratosthenes,  one  of  the  Thirty,  for  the  murder  of  Pole- 


ATTIC   ORATORS  327 

marchus.  The  speech  Against  Eratosthenes,  the  only 
speech  ever  delivered  in  public  by  Lysias  himself,  is  ex- 
ceptionally fine,  though  whether  it  led  to  the  condemnation 
of  Eratosthenes  or  not  is  uncertain.  Soon  after  the  de- 
livery of  this  speech,  Lysias  was  again  reduced  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  metic,  because  of  some  illegality  in  the  decree 
conferring  the  citizenship  upon  him. 

He  remained  at  Athens,  however,  and  devoted  himself 
to  writing  speeches.  As  a  metic  he  could  not  speak  in 
person  before  the  assembly  or  the  courts,  but  he  made  it 
his  profession  to  compose  speeches  for  others.  Since  the 
politicians  of  Athens  were  themselves  orators  of  more  or 
less  ability,  they  naturally  composed  their  own  speeches  ;  the 
Lysias  as  a  speeches  of  Lysias  are  therefore,  for  the  most 
writer  of  part,  written  for  delivery  before  the  courts  of 
speeches.  jaw>  According  to  the  Athenian  law,  the  par- 
ties to  a  suit  must  plead  their  cases  in  person  (though  an 
advocate  might  be  called  in  to  help),  which  gave  a  good 
speaker  a  great  advantage.  To  offset  this,  those  who  had 
not  great  confidence  in  their  own  oratory  went  to  a  log- 
ographer  and  had  their  speeches  written  for  them.  The 
logographer  must,  in  order  to  be  successful,  keep  his  own 
personality  as  much  as  possible  out  of  sight,  and  compose  a 
speech  appropriate  to  the  character  and  position  of  his 
client.  In  this  Lysias  was  eminently  successful,  showing 
great  ability  in  adapting  his  words  to  different  characters 
and  occasions.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  which  took  place 
about  380  b.  c,  he  was  the  greatest  logographer  of  Athens. 
More  than  four  hundred  speeches,  about  half  of  which 
were  regarded  by  good  judges  as  genuine,  were  current  in 
ancient  times  under  the  name  of  Lysias.  Of 
peec  eg  o        ^  ^ege  we  now  |iaye  a  little  more  than  thirty 

orations,  more  than  half  of  which  are  defective. 
These  are  all  speeches  for  delivery  in  court  except  two  frag- 
ments— one  of  a  political  speech  composed  in  403  as  a  pro- 
test against  the  limitation  of  the  democracy,  the  other  of 
22 


328  GREEK  LITERATURE 

a  public  address  delivered  in  388  b.  c.  at  Olympia,  in  which 
the  Greeks  are  exhorted  to  combine  against  the  tyrants,  and 
to  begin  by  overthrowing  Dionysius  of  Syracuse.  These 
two  fragments  are  short,  and  add  little  to  our  knowledge 
of  Lysias,  except  that  the  Olympic  address  shows  that  in 
composing  an  oration  of  that  sort  Lysias  could  not  escape 
the  influence  of  Isocrates. 

The  most  famous  oration  of  Lysias  is  that  which  he  de- 
livered himself  against  Eratosthenes.  In  the  introduction 
Lysias  speaks  of  the  magnitude  of  his  wrongs, 
Rrtoith  n  s  ^ne  cl°se  connection  between  the  public  inter- 
est and  his  own,  his  inexperience  in  law  courts, 
and  his  confidence  in  the  judges.  These  are  the  common- 
places of  introductions,  which  each  orator  varied  according 
to  his  ability.  The  narrative  part  of  the  speech  follows. 
This  is  a  marvel  of  clearness,  brevity,  and  subtle  persuasive- 
ness. The  orator  makes  his  hearers  see  just  how  things 
were  done,  and  makes  it  impossible  to  believe  that  they 
could  have  happened  in  any  way  other  than  that  which  he 
describes.  Everything  is  simple,  vivid,  and  natural,  with 
here  and  there  a  touch  of  irony,  and  at  the  end  a  rapid 
summary  of  outrages,  well  calculated  to  intensify  in  the 
minds  of  the  judges  the  feelings  of  pity  for  the  accuser 
and  hatred  of  the  Thirty,  already  aroused  by  the  previous 
narrative.  The  discussion  or  argument  is  simple  and  brief, 
but  vigorous,  quick,  and  sharp,  even  though  taken  up  in 
great  part  with  a  criticism  of  the  character  of  Theramenes, 
to  whose  moderate  wing  of  the  oligarchical  party  Eratos- 
thenes claimed  to  belong.  The  peroration  opposes  the  in- 
justice of  the  Thirty  to  the  justice  of  the  democracy, 
attacks  the  defenders  of  Eratosthenes,  appeals  to  all  polit- 
ical parties,  now  united  in  love  of  justice  and  liberty,  and 
ends  with  the  eloquent  and  impressive  words : 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  tell  what  would  have  happened,  since  I 
can  not  tell  the  things  that  these  men  did ;  for  that  were  the  task  not 
of  one  accuser,  but  of  many.     Nevertheless,  there  has  been  no  lack 


ATTIC  ORATORS  329 

of  zeal  on  my  part  in  behalf  of  the  sacred  shrines,  some  of  which 
these  men  sold,  and  others  they  entered  and  defiled;  in  behalf  of  the 
city,  which  they  made  small ;  in  behalf  of  the  shipyards,  which  they 
destroyed;  and  in  behalf  of  the  slain,  for  whom,  since  you  could 
not  protect  them  when  living,  I  call  upon  you  to  fight  after  their 
death.  And  I  fancy  that  they  are  listening  to  us  and  will  know 
you  as  you  cast  your  votes,  thinking  that  all  of  you  who  vote  to 
acquit  these  men  are  condemning  them  to  death,  and  that  those  who 
exact  the  penalty  from  these  men  have  done  vengeance  for  them. 
I  will  cease  my  accusation.  You  have  heard,  you  have  seen,  you 
have  suffered,  the  case  is  in  your  hands.     Judge. 

In  this  oration  Lysias  shows  his  ability  in  clear  and 
smooth  narrative,  telling  argument,  and  graceful  simplicity 
style  and  °^  expression.  He  even  rises  to  something  like 
composition  impassioned  eloquence,  though  for  the  real  fire 
of  Lysias's  0f  impassioned  words  we  must  wait  until  the 
coming  of  Demosthenes.  In  the  time  of  Lysias 
passion  was  not  considered  good  taste,  and  if  we  feel  a  lack 
of  emotion  in  the  speech  against  Eratosthenes,  it  is  in  part, 
at  least,  because  the  time  was  not  yet  come  for  the  display 
of  strong  personal  feeling  in  oratory.  But  in  this  speech 
we  have  before  us  Lysias  speaking  in  his  own  person,  and 
we  get  an  idea  of  his  refined  taste,  good  feeling,  and  self- 
restraint.  In  his  other  speeches  we  see  how  he  was  able  to 
portray  the  character  of  others. 

This  ability  to  adapt  his  speeches  to  his  clients  was  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  for  his  success  as  a  logographer.  It 
The  speech  appears  nowhere  to  greater  advantage  than  in 
For  the  the  speech  For  the  Invalid,  delivered  by  a  poor 

invalid.  man  who  received  an  obol  a  day  from  the  city 

for  his  support  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  support 
himself.  Some  one  had  proposed  that  this  small  pension 
be  withdrawn,  alleging  that  the  man  had  a  trade  by  which 
he  could  support  himself ;  that  he  was  not  physically  inca- 
pable of  work,  since  he  could  mount  a  horse ;  and  that  he 
was  a  violent  and  disagreeable  fellow  at  best.  The  invalid 
engaged  Lysias  to  write  a  speech  for  him,  and  this  Lysias 


330  GREEK  LITERATURE 

did  in  delightful  fashion,  with  delicate  humor,  such  as  even 
the  poor  man  must  have  felt  was  fitting  when  the  case 
involved  so  small  a  sum : 

My  accuser  says  it  is  not  right  for  me  to  receive  money  from  the 
state ;  for  I  am  able-bodied,  and  have  a  trade  such  that  I  can  live 
without  this  gratuity.  And  he  adduces  as  proofs  for  my  able- 
bodiedness  that  I  ride  horseback,  and  for  my  prosperity  in  my  trade 
that  I  am  able  to  associate  with  men  who  have  money  to  spend. 
Now  my  prosperity  from  my  trade  and  the  manner  of  my  life  in 
general  I  think  you  all  know,  but,  nevertheless,  I  will  tell  you 
briefly.  My  father  left  me  nothing  as  an  inheritance,  and  it  is 
less  than  three  years  since  my  mother  died  and  I  have  not  had  to 
support  her,  and  I  have  not  yet  any  children  to  care  for  me.  And 
the  trade  I  have  is  one  which  can  earn  little,  which  I  carry  on  with 
difficulty  myself,  and  I  have  not  yet  found  any  one  to  buy  me  out. 

This  passage,  taken  from  near  the  beginning  of  the 
speech,  gives   some  idea   of  its  general   tone.     In  other 

speeches  Lysias  assumes  the  character  of  other 
y  e  an  m0re  important   persons   engaged  in  greater 

legal  struggles,  and  everywhere  he  makes  his 
words  suit  the  speaker  and  the  occasion.  His  style  is 
always  simple  and  straightforward,  his  language  that  of 
every-day  life,  the  parts  of  the  speeches  well-balanced,  and 
each  part  carefully  composed ;  but  all  is  done  with  the  art 
that  conceals  art,  producing  the  effect  of  perfect  ease,  and 
the  style  is  slightly  modified  to  adapt  itself  to  each  special 
case.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Lysias  was  the 
model  for  all  other  logographers  to  imitate. 

Isaeus  was  also  a  logographer  by  profession.  He  was 
born  at  Athens,  according  to  some  authors;  at  Chalcis, 

according  to  others.    He  certainly  spent  nearly 

all  his  life  at  Athens,  where  he  refrained  from 
public  life  and  devoted  himself  to  writing  speeches.  He 
was  a  younger  contemporary  of  Lysias.  The  earliest  of  his 
extant  speeches  which  can  be  dated  belongs  to  the  year 
389,  the  latest  to  353  b.  c.     There  is  no  good  reason  to 


ATTIC  ORATORS  331 

doubt  the  truth  of  the  statement  that  he  was  the  teacher 
of  Demosthenes,  though  the  story  that  some  of  the  orations 
ascribed  to  Demosthenes  are  really  the  work  of  Isaeus  is 
false. 

The  ancients  had  some  fifty  speeches  by  Isaeus,  not 
counting  those  falsely  ascribed  to  him,  and  several  rhetor- 
ical works.  Of  the  latter  nothing  is  left,  and 
peec  es  o  ^  ^e  speeches  we  have  only  twelve,  all  of 
which  relate  to  wills  and  inheritances.  These 
were  evidently  one  part  of  an  edition  of  his  speeches  arranged 
by  subjects.  These  speeches  offer  less  variety  than  those  of 
Lysias,  and  are  for  that  reason  far  less  interesting.  They 
discuss  many  minute  points  of  Attic  testamentary  law,  and 
are  important  for  the  student  of  legal  matters.  Their  lack 
of  variety  is  due  not  simply  to  their  similarity  in  subject, 
but  in  part  also  to  the  fact  that  Isaeus  is  less  interested  than 
Lysias  in  descriptive  narrative  and  more  devoted  to  argu- 
ment and  dialectics.  His  style  resembles  that  of  Lysias  in 
clearness,  precision,  brevity  of  statement,  purity  of  lan- 
guage, and  elegance  of  expression,  so  that  even  the  ancients 
found  it  hard  to  distinguish  between  the  works  of  the  two 
authors ;  but  Isaeus  lacks  something  of  the  graceful  ease  of 
Lysias,  and  has,  on  the  other  hand,  a  vigor  and  fiery  ear- 
nestness which  Lysias  has  not.  In  his  arguments  Lysias 
leaves  details  to  the  understanding  or  imagination  of  the 
hearers,  while  Isaeus  explains  everything  carefully.  In  the 
extant  speeches  this  is  often  necessary,  but  ancient  critics 
seem  to  have  found  the  same  peculiarity  in  speeches  not 
concerned  with  will  cases. 

Among  the  extant  speeches  one  of  the  most  interesting 

is  that  On  the  Heritage  of  Ciron.     The  speaker  is  the  son 

of  the  deceased  Ciron's  daughter.     Ciron  had 

?C'r  in  age    ^e(^>  leaving  no   son,  and  his   daughter,  the 

mother  of  the  speaker,  had  died  since.    Ciron's 

estate  was  claimed  by  his  nephew,  the  son  of  his  brother, 

on  the  ground  that  since  inheritance  goes  in  the  male  line, 


332  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  son  of  a  brother  has  more  right  than  the  son  of  a 
daughter.  He  seems  to  have  ^asserted  besides  that  the 
speaker  was  not  Ciron's  grandson  at  all.  So  the  speech 
has  to  establish  the  fact  of  the  relationship,  and  also  to 
argue  for  the  rights  of  the  daughter's  son  against  the 
nephew.  On  both  these  points  Isaeus  shows  his  mastery  of 
clear  and  vigorous  statement,  clever  argument,  and  precise 
thought.  That  he  should  have  been  chosen  as  teacher  by 
the  young  Demosthenes  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 

But  before  we  reach  Demosthenes,  the  greatest  of  politi- 
cal orators,  we  must  turn  to  the  great  master  of  epideictic 
oratory,  the  oratory  of  public  addresses  on  great  occasions, 
which  seeks  not  to  win  a  lawsuit  nor  to  gain  votes  for  a 
definite  policy,  but  to  inculcate  general  policies,  teach  gen- 
eral ideas,  ennoble  and  educate  the  hearers,  or  under  other 
circumstances  praise  the  dead  or  even  the  living.  The 
master  of  this  kind  of  oratory  is  Isocrates. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

ISOCRATES 

Isocrates,  436-338  b.  c— Life  of  Isocrates — His  forensic  speeches 
and  letters — His  political  views— His  philosophy— His  style— His 
works — Alcidamas,  about  425  b.  c. 

Isoceates  was  born  in  436  b.  c,  in  the  Attic  deme  of 
Erchia,  where  Xenophon  was  born  some  five  or  six  years 

later.  His  father,  Theodoras,  was  a  wealthy 
Life  of  gu^e  manufacturer,  and  Isocrates  received  a 

good  education.  Most  of  the  prominent 
sophists  of  the  period  are  mentioned  as  his  teachers,  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  he  received  lessons  from 
several  of  them.  He  owed  much  to  the  teachings  of 
Socrates,  though  he  did  not  devote  himself  to  speculative 
philosophy.  The  Peloponnesian  War  destroyed  his  father's 
wealth,  and  Isocrates  had  to  support  himself.  He  went  to 
Thessaly  and  studied  under  Gorgias ;  then  he  returned  to 
Athens  and  took  up  the  profession  of  a  logographer.  For 
ten  or  twelve  years,  from  about  402  to  390,  he  composed 
speeches  for  others  to  deliver  in  court,  by  which  he  gained 
his  livelihood  and  a  great  reputation.  But  the  small  mat- 
ters of  private  rights  and  wrongs  which  the  logographer 
had  to  treat  seemed  to  him  mean  and  petty.  Besides,  the 
logographer  had  to  hide  his  own  personality  behind  that  of 
his  client,  and  did  not  himself  receive  the  praises  of  the 
people.  Isocrates  preferred  general  ideas,  great  subjects, 
praise,  and  glory.  He  might  have  turned  to  active  political 
life  and  to  speaking  in  the  popular  assembly ;  but  his  voice 

333 


334  GREEK  LITERATURE 

was  weak,  and  his  personal  timidity  so  great  that  he  felt 
himself  debarred  from  public  life.  He  turned  therefore  to 
epMgicJic  eloquence  and  the  teaching  of  rhetoric.  For 
fifty  years,  beginning  about  390  b.  c,  he  was  the  most  dis- 
tinguished teacher  of  rhetoric  and  the  greatest  epideictic 
orator  of  Athens.  If  he  really  taught  at  Chios,  it  was 
probably  only  for  a  short  time  before  he  opened  his  school 
at  Athens.  His  orations  were  composed  to  be  read,  not  to 
be  actually  spoken,  and  served  a  twofold  purpose,  being  at 
once  models  of  style  and  composition  for  the  use  of  his 
pupils  and  pamphlets  which  circulated  among  the  public, 
spreading  abroad  the  opinions  and  the  reputation  of  their 
author. 

The  pupils  of  Isocrates  were  many  and  famous.    Among 
them  were  orators  such  as  Isseus,  Hyperides,  and  Lycurgus ; 

historians,  like  Ephorus  and  Theopompus ;  and 
e  sc  oo  o     statesmen,  like  Timotheus,  the  son  of  Conon. 

The  regular  course  in  the  school  lasted  three 
or  four  years,  and  the  charge  for  tuition  was  a  thousand 
drachmas  (about  $200,  or  £40),  which  sufficed  to  make 
Isocrates  a  rich  man.  He  gave  instruction  in  what  he 
called  "  philosophy  " ;  not  the  physical  speculations  of  the 
early  philosophers,  nor  the  ethical  speculations  of  Socrates 
and  Plato,  but  a  more  ooncrete  and  practical  object  of 
study — the  art  of  rhetoric  as  applied  to  great  political  sub- 
jects. This  he  regarded  as  the  proper  preparation  for  a 
successful  and  useful  public  life.  In  his  later  years  he  was 
one  of  the  most  noted  men  of  Greece.  He  was  on  terms 
of  greater  or  less  intimacy  with  the  two  Cypriote  kings 
Evagoras  and  Xicocles  of  Salamis,  with  Archidamus  of 
Sparta,  Jason  of  Pherae,  and  Philip  of  Macedon.  He  lived 
to  the  extraordinary  age  of  ninety-eight  years,  and  his 
ability  to  work  continued  to  the  end.  He  is  said  to  have 
committed  suicide  after  the  battle  of  Chaaronea,  in  338  b.  c, 
through  despair  at  the  ruin  of  his  hopes  for  Greece.  The 
reason  given  is  undoubtedly  wrong,  for  Isocrates  regarded 


ISOCRATES  335 

Philip  as  the  natural  leader  of  a  great  Greek  expedition 
against  Persia.  Isocrates  married  late,  and  adopted  Apha- 
reus,  his  wife's  son  by  a  previous  marriage.  This  Aphareus 
was  an  orator  and  tragic  poet  of  some  reputation. 

The  works  of  Isocrates  preserved  to  us  are  six  speeches 
in  legal  cases,  fifteen  didactic  and  epideictic  orations,  and 
Forensic  nme  letters.     Of  the  letters,  one  at  least  (the 

speeches  and  ninth)  is  a  forgery,  and  some  of  the  orations 
letters.  are  mutilated.     We  have,  however,  by  far  the 

greater  part  of  what  the  ancient  critics  regarded  as  his 
genuine  work.  The  letters  show  much  the  same  qualities 
as  the  orations,  except  that  they  are  shorter  and  less  elab- 
orate. The  legal  or  forensic  speeches,  belonging  as  they 
do  to  the  author's  early  years,  show  at  times  the  influence 
of  Gorgias,  at  times  some  of  the  qualities  of  Lysias.  Their 
language  is,  like  that  of  the  speeches  of  Lysias,  pure  Attic 
and  well  chosen,  and  they  remind  one  of  Lysias  in  their 
general  air  of  candor  and  honesty,  but  they  betray  a  pecu- 
liar liking  for  generalities  and  care  in  the  arrangement  of 
ideas.  These  speeches  are  excellent,  though  not  equal  to 
those  of  Lysias ;  but  the  importance  of  Isocrates  is  due  not 
to  these  but  to  the  essays  in  oratorical  form,  the  epideictic 
speeches.  Some  of  these,  the  Busiris  and  the  Encomium 
on  Helen,  are  written  merely  for  display,  to  show  the  beau- 
ties of  style,  and  at  the  same  time  to  show  that  speeches 
on  mythological  subjects  could  have  some  practical  value  ; 
one,  the  Evagoras,  is  a  typical  eucomium,  in  praise  of  a 
deceased  monarch ;  two,  Against  the  Sophists  and  On  the 
Antidosis,  are  in  defense  of  the  author  and  his  "philos- 
ophy " ;  but  the  greater  number,  and  the  most  important 
orations,  have  to  do  with  politics,  either  the  internal  poli- 
tics of  Greece  or  the  relations  of  Greece  and  Persia. 

Isocrates  saw  that  the  independent  life  of  the  Greek 
cities  was  degenerating.  The  people  would  no  longer  serve 
in  the  army,  but  the  states  supported  armies  of  hired  sol- 
diers, who  were  irregularly  paid,  and  sometimes  deserted  a 


336  GREEK  LITERATURE 

poor  paymaster  for  a  better,  sometimes  turned  to  plunder 
and  rapine.     The  rich  were  growing  richer,  and  the  one 
effort  of  the  poor  was  to  gain  some  of  the  wealth  of  the 
rich,  or  at  least  contrive  in  some  way  to  live 
o  i  ica  without  labor.      Population,  though   not    in- 

creasing, was  excessive,  now  that  commerce  was 
less  flourishing  than  in  earlier  times.  All  these  evils  Isoc- 
rates thought  could  be  removed,  or  at  any  rate  dimin- 
ished, if  the  Greeks  would  give  up  their  petty  wars  among 
themselves  and  unite  in  an  invasion  of  Persia.  For  years 
he  hoped  that  Athens  would  take  the  lead  in  this  great 
movement,  but  his  hopes  were  not  fulfilled.  At  various 
times  he  hoped  great  things  from  Dionysius  I  of  Syracuse, 
Jason  of  Pheras,  Archidamus  of  Sparta,  and  Philip  of  Mace- 
don.  He  had  not  the  fiery,  intense  patriotism  of  Demos- 
thenes, who  could  say  that  a  struggle  for  freedom,  even 
though  ending  in  disaster,  was  better  than  submission  to 
Philip;  but  he  believed  that  prosperity,  happiness,  and 
greatness  could  be  gained  for  Greece  only  by  united  action 
under  one  leader,  and  was  willing  to  let  Philip  be  the  Aga- 
memnon to  lead  the  united  forces  of  Hellas  against  the 
barbarian  East.  The  honesty  of  his  purpose  was  never 
questioned,  and  it  was  never  suggested  that  he  had  been 
bribed  by  Philip,  no  matter  how  widely  his  political  advice 
differed  from  the  course  advocated  by  Demosthenes.  Isoc- 
rates  was  not  a  practical  politician,  but  his  theories  were 
not  mere  dreams,  and  he  foresaw  more  clearly  than  his 
contemporaries  that  the  Greek  cities  must  give  up  their 
independence  and  submit  to  the  rule,  or  at  least  to  the 
leadership,  of  one  man. 

The  so-called  "philosophy"  of  Isocrates  consisted  of 
what  he  regarded  as  practical  knowledge.  Grammar, 
The  phi-  mathematics,  natural  phenomena,  music,  his- 

losophyof  tory,  and  the  like  are  necessary  preparations 
Isocrates.  for  further  study,  but  are  not  in  themselves 
proper  subjects  of  long-continued  investigation.    The  truly 


ISOCRATES  337 

cultured  man  needs  them,  but  only  as  the  healthy  man 
needs  gymnastics,  as  preliminary  exercise  to  fit  him  for  the 
work  of  life.  This  work  Isocrates  finds  in  political  and 
practical  activity.  He  agrees  with  Plato,  so  far  as  the 
sciences  just  mentioned  are  concerned,  but  does  not,  like 
Plato,  believe  that  the  philosopher's  highest  activity  is  the 
search  for  truth,  but  rather  that  he  should  benefit  the  world 
by  directing  public  policy  in  accordance  with  wise  general 
principles.  The  ethics  adopted  by  Isocrates  are  those  of 
tradition  and  common  practise.  His  religion,  too,  is  that 
of  the  people  about  him,  and  though  he  speaks  with  rever- 
ence of  the  gods,  it  is  evident  that  his  belief  is  not  vital. 
From  all  this  it  is  clear  that  he  was  not  a  philosopher  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  word,  and  if  he  called  him- 
self a  philosopher,  it  is  because  the  meaning  of  the  word 
was  not  yet  fixed.  We  should  call  him  rather  an  essayist 
and  teacher  of  prose  style. 

The  style  of  Gorgias  and  Antiphon  was  dignified  and 
austere,  seeking  effect  by  the  choice  of  poetic  or  archaic 

words,  and  by  opposing  one  word  to  another, 
The  style  of       ,  '      ,  •     ^.,,       .        S,        ,,       IT      .  ' 

isocrates.         "y  verbal  antithesis ;  the  style  01  Lysias  was 

plain  and  simple,  with  all  its  liveliness  and 
natural  grace  ;  but  that  of  Isocrates  is  artistic  and  elabo- 
rate. His  periods  are  often  long,  and  always  carefully 
composed,  consisting  of  one  main  idea  about  which  several 
lesser  thoughts  are  grouped.  But  with  all  their  length, 
these  periods  are  never  obscure,  and  the  words  and  phrases 
are  so  arranged  as  to  strike  upon  the  ear  with  a  pleasing 
and  dignified  rhythm.  He  uses  the  words  of  every-day  life, 
and  uses  them  in  their  ordinary  sense,  but  he  arranges 
them  in  clauses  carefully  devised  to  be  of  the  same  length, 
or  to  have  words  of  similar  sound  in  the  corresponding 
places,  or  he  balances  his  clauses  by  antithesis.  The  effect 
of  all  this  is  to  give  his  prose  grandeur  and  musical  sweet- 
ness, but  at  the  same  time  to  make  it  a  little  monotonous. 
The  effect  of  artificiality  is  increased  by  the  careful  avoid- 


338  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ance  of  hiatus — that  is,  by  the  arrangement  of  words  so  that 
no  word  ending  with  a  vowel  shall  be  followed  by  a  word 
beginning  with  a  vowel.  This  gives  a  smoothness  to  the 
prose  of  Isocrates,  which  is  found  in  that  of  none  of  his 
predecessors. 

The  style  of  Isocrates  can  not  be  adequately  illustrated 
by  selections,  nor  rendered  in  translation.  Its  chief  fea- 
tures have  just  been  mentioned.  There  is  a  difference  in 
style  between  the  Panegyricus,  of  380,  and  the  Panathenai- 
cus,  of  339  b.  c,  but  the  difference  is  in  details  and  in  the 
degree  to  which  one  peculiarity  or  another  is  carried,  not 
in  general  qualities.  The  general  qualities  mentioned  be- 
long to  all  the  orations  (or  essays  in  oratorical  style)  from 
first  to  last.  The  influence  of  Isocrates  upon  the  standard 
of  Greek  prose  writing  was  great  and  lasting.  Through 
the  schools  of  rhetoric  his  style  was  passed  on  to  the 
Eomans,  and  was  adopted  by  Cicero  as  the  foundation  of 
his  own.  Cicero  has  in  turn  served  as  a  model  to  later 
generations,  and  thus  Isocrates  has  influenced  literature 
even  to  our  own  time. 

The  first  of  the  great  works  of  Isocrates  is  the  Pane- 
gyricus (380  B.  a),  one  of  his  most  beautiful  orations,  in 
which  he  glorifies  Athens  and  urges  that  she 
Works  of         i^  ^e  iea(jer  jn  a  war  0f  an  Greece  against 

Persia.  The  Plataicus,  probably  written  soon 
after  the  capture  of  Platsea  by  the  Thebans  in  373  b.  c,  de- 
scribes to  the  Athenians  the  misfortunes  of  the  vanquished 
and  shows  the  injustice  of  the  victors.  The  oration  On  the 
Peace  (357  or  355)  opposes  the  war  party  at  Athens,  and 
urges  just  and  conciliatory  behavior  toward  the  allies. 
The  Areopagiticus  (about  355)  recommends  a  return  to  the 
old  constitution  of  Athens,  which  made  the  Areopagus  the 
guiding  power  in  the  state.  In  the  speech  On  the  Antido- 
sis,  or  Exchange  of  Properties  (354),  Isocrates  gives  a  gen- 
eral account  of  his  life  and  a  defense  of  his  "  philosophy," 
or  system  of  education  founded  upon  literary  rhetoric.     A 


ISOCRATES  339 

certain  Lysimachus  brought  suit  against  Isocrates  to  force 
him  to  exchange  properties  with  him  or  to  undertake  a 
choregia.  This  was  a  regular  legal  method  for  compelling 
rich  men  to  do  their  duty.  The  speech  of  Isocrates  was 
not  delivered  in  court,  but  published  after  the  trial,  in 
which  Isocrates  seems  to  have  been  defeated.  In  the 
Philippus  (346)  Isocrates  urges  Philip  to  lead  the  Greeks 
against  Persia.  The  last  great  oration,  the  Panathenaicus, 
returns  to  the  praise  of  Athens,  and  at  the  same  time  de- 
fends the  methods  and  educational  theories  of  the  author. 
The  other  orations  are  of  less  importance. 

A  rival  of  Isocrates,  of  some  importance  in  his  day,  was 
Alcidamas,  from  Elea,  in  JEolis,  a  pupil  of  Gorgias.  His 
only  extant  speech,  On  the  Sophists,  finds  fault 
with  Isocrates  for  training  writers  rather  than 
speakers.  In  another  speech,  on  the  affairs  of  Messenia,  he 
said :  "  God  set  all  men  free ;  nature  has  made  no  one  a 
slave." 


CHAPTEE   XXXI 

DEMOSTHENES 

Demosthenes,  384-322  b.  c. — His  birth  and  early  life — Early  speeches 
— Political  law  suits — Political  career — The  oration  On  the  Grown — His 
last  years — His  death — Private  speeches — Style  and  composition — Wis- 
dom of  his  political  course. 

It  was  not  until  toward  the  middle  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury that  political  oratory  became  a  part  of  literature. 
Before  that  time  there  had  been  great  and  influential  pub- 
lic speakers,  but  their  speeches  had  not  been  written  before 
delivery,  still  less  published  afterward.  Even  in  the  days 
of  Demosthenes  there  were  still  orators,  such  as  Phocion 
and  Demades,  whose  speeches  were  not  written ;  but,  as  a 
rule,  the  orators  of  this  time  were  writers  as  well  as  speak- 
ers. This  was  in  part  due  to  the  fact  that  writing  was  now 
an  easy  and  natural  aid  in  composition,  but  probably  more 
to  the  desire  of  the  orators,  now  that  the  rise  of  Philip  gave 
a  new  greatness  to  politics,  to  publish  their  words  as  writ- 
ings, and  thus  appeal  to  a  larger  public  than  could  listen  to 
their  speech.  LthLjJk/}) 

The  greatest  of  all  Greek  orators,  rM&-ejL£ii  the  great- 
est orator  of  the  world,  Demosthenes,  son  of  Demosthenes, 
was  born  in  the  deme  of  Paeania  in  384  B.  c,  the  same  year 
which  saw  the  birth  of  Aristotle  at  Stagira.  The  elder 
Demosthenes  was  a  manufacturer  of  arms  and 
Early  life  of        }  f  heg>      The    orator>g  mother,   Cleo- 

Demosthenes.  1  ■»,■■.  n 

bule,  was  the  daughter  of  an  Athenian,  named 

Gylon,  and  a  Scythian  woman.     At  the  age  of  seven  years 
Demosthenes  lost  his  father,  who  left  a  will  providing  that 
340 


DEMOSTHENES. 

Statue  in  the  Vatican  Museum,  Rome. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


DEMOSTHENES  341 

Aphobus,  Demophon,  and  Therippides  should  have  the 
care  of  his  property  and  be  guardians  of  his  son,  that 
Aphobus  should  marry  his  widow,  and  Demophon  his 
daughter,  then  a  child  of  five  years  of  age.  The  three  men 
took  possession  of  the  property,  but  carried  out  none  of  the 
other  provisions  of  the  will.  When  Demosthenes  reached 
his  majority,  in  366  b.  c,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  the  estate, 
originally  about  $15,000,  or  £3,000,  had  been  almost  entirely 
squandered.  He  immediately  began  legal  proceedings 
against  his  guardians,  but  brought  only  one  suit  to  trial,  a 
suit  against  Aphobus  for  ten  talents  ($10,000,  or  £2,000). 
He  spent  three  years  in  preparation  for  this  suit,  studying 
especially  with  Isaeus,  and  when  the  trial  took  place,  in  363, 
he  obtained  a  judgment  in  his  favor,  delivering  on  this 
occasion  the  two  speeches  Against  Aphobus.  He  did  not, 
however,  obtain  his  property  nor  the  damages,  for  when  he 
tried  to  seize  a  piece  of  land  belonging  to  Aphobus,  Onetor, 
brother-in-law  of  Aphobus,  claimed  that  the  land  was  his 
own,  having  been  taken  as  security  for  the  dowry  of  his  sis- 
ter. In  the  suit  arising  from  this  incident  Demosthenes 
delivered  his  two  speeches  Against  Onetor.  Whether  he 
won  the  suit  or  not  is  uncertain,  but  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  received  much  money,  for  he  turned  to  speech  writing 
to  support  himself,  and  continued  to  exercise  this  profes- 
sion at  least  until  345.  It  was  an  excellent  preparation  for 
political  life,  to  which  Demosthenes  was  attracted  by  na- 
ture. He  is  said  to  have  tried  public  political  speaking 
while  still  young  and  to  have  failed  through  weakness  of 
voice,  poor  enunciation,  and  feeble  action.  An  old  actor, 
Satyrus,  comforted  him  by  saying  that  his  speech  resem- 
bled that  of  Pericles.  Demosthenes  then,  according  to  the 
story,  practised  speaking  with  pebbles  in  his  mouth  to  train 
himself  in  careful  enunciation,  declaimed  on  the  seashore, 
while  the  waves  roared  about  him,  to  strengthen  his  voice, 
and  shut  himself  up  in  a  cave  to  work  without  interrup- 
tion.    These  tales  have  probably  little  foundation,  but  it  is 


342  GREEK  LITERATURE 

certain  that  he  must  have  worked  hard,  studying  the  works 
of  poets,  orators,  and  historians,  though  we  need  not  be- 
lieve the  tale  that  he  copied  the  history  of  Thucydides 
eight  times  with  his  own  hand. 

Four  speeches  in  political  lawsuits — Against  Androtion 

(355),   Leptines   (354),    Ti?nocrates  (352),  and  Aristocrates 

(352),  and  three  public  speeches  in  the  assem- 

fuitfCal  laW*  bly'  0n  the  Symmories>  or  navy  boards  (354), 
For  the  Megalopolitans  (352),  and  For  the  Rho- 
dians  (351) — show  that  Demosthenes  was  gaining  reputation 
as  a  speaker  and  a  man  of  action.  He  was  now  ready  for 
the  great  struggle  which  was  to  end  only  with  his  life,  the 
struggle  to  maintain  the  power  and  independence  of  Athens 
against  the  Macedonians.  His  political  prominence  was 
shown  in  an  unpleasant  way  at  the  Dionysiac  festival  in  the 
spring  of  350  b.  c,  when  Midias,  a  rich  man  of  the  peace 
party,  struck  him  in  the  face.  Demosthenes  was  choregus, 
and  the  offense  was  therefore  a  very  serious  one.  Demos- 
thenes immediately  procured  a  vote  of  the  assembly  con- 
demning the  action  of  Midias  and  prepared  for  legal  action, 
but  the  suit  was  compromised  by  a  payment  of  damages. 
The  reason  for  this  may  be  that  just  at  this  time  the  par- 
ties to  which  Demosthenes  and  Midias  belonged  were  tem- 
porarily reconciled.  The  powerful  speech  Against  Midias 
was  never  delivered. 

The  political  career  of  Demosthenes  may  be  divided  into 
three  periods  :  from  351  to  340  b.  c,  when  he  is  the  chief  of 
The  political  tne  Opposition,  the  peace  party  being  in  power ; 
career  of  from  340  to  338  b.  c,  when  the  war  party,  with 

Demosthenes.  Demosthenes  at  its  head,  directs  the  affairs 
of  the  state ;  and  the  time  after  338  b.  c,  when  the  battle 
of  Chaeronea  has  put  an  end  to  the  Athenian  power  and 
Demosthenes  has  to  defend  himself  against  the  attacks  of 
his  political  enemies.  To  the  first  period  belong  the  nine 
speeches  against  Philip,  which  fall  into  two  groups.  To 
the  first  group  belong  the  First  Philippic  (351  B.  c),  in 


DEMOSTHENES  343 

which  he  urges  that  a  force  of  citizen  soldiers,  not  mere 
mercenaries,  be  sent  to  check  Philip's  operations  in  Thrace, 
and  the  three  Olynthiacs  (349-348  b.  c),  in  which  he  ex- 
horts the  Athenians  to  aid  the  city  of  Olynthus,  the  head 
of  a  confederacy  of  thirty-two  towns,  which  Philip  finally 
destroyed  in  348  b.  c.  The  speeches  of  the  second  group 
are  directed  against  Philip  after  he  had  (in  346  B.  c.)  been 
admitted  to  the  Amphictyonic  Council  and  had  thus  be- 
come an  enemy  in  Greece  itself,  no  longer  a  foreign  foe. 
To  this  group  belong  the  speech  On  the  Peace  (346),  the 
Second  Philippic  (344),  the  False  Legation  (343),  in  which 
he  accuses  iEschines  of  treasonable  conduct  while  on  an 
embassy  to  Philip,  On  the  Chersonnese  (341),  and  the  Third 
Philippic  (341).  In  these  speeches  he  discloses  the  plans 
of  Philip  and  shows  how  he  is  advancing  to  the  conquest 
of  Greece.  At  the  end  he  succeeded  in  bringing  Byzan- 
tium back  to  the  Athenian  alliance  and  in  forming  an 
alliance  between  Athens  and  Thebes.  The  allies  met  the 
Macedonians  at  Chaeronea  in  338  B.  c,  and  were  defeated. 
Demosthenes  retreated  with  the  other  Athenian  survivors  to 
Athens  ;  yet  in  spite  of  the  defeat  the  Athenians  honored 
Demosthenes  by  choosing  him  to  deliver  the  funeral  ora- 
tion over  the  dead. 

In  336  b.  c.  Ctesiphon  proposed  that  Demosthenes  be 

honored  by  the  gift  of  a  golden  wreath  from  the  city.    The 

orator  iEschines,  who  was  a  political  opponent 

Srth'cr011    of  I)emostnenes  and  nad  been  for  years  in  tlie 

pay  of  Philip,  opposed  the  proposal  on  legal 
grounds.  For  various  reasons  the  trial  was  postponed  un- 
til 330  b.  c.  Then  Demosthenes  delivered  his  speech  On 
the  Crown,  a  splendid  defense  of  his  whole  political  career 
and  the  greatest  oration  of  all  antiquity.  His  advice  had 
led  Athens  to  defeat,  but  honorable  defeat.  Had  the  party 
of  "  peace  at  any  price  "  had  its  way,  Athens  would  still 
have  been  overcome,  and  would  have  lost  her  honor  with 
her  freedom.  Demosthenes  could  not  regret  his  course  of 
23 


344  GREEK  LITERATURE 

action,  "  for,"  he  said,  "  if  what  was  to  happen  had  been 
plain  to  all,  and  all  had  known  it  beforehand,  not  even  then 
ought  the  city  to  have  abandoned  this  course,  if  she  had 
any  regard  for  her  glory  or  our  ancestors  or  future  ages." 
And  Athens  was  not  false  to  her  glorious  past,  for  Demos- 
thenes won  his  case,  and  iEschines  did  not  receive  even  a 
fifth  part  of  the  votes  of  the  dicasts. 

In  335  b.  c,  after  the  death  of  Philip,  Alexander  took 
and  destroyed  Thebes.     He  then  demanded  that  ten  Athe- 
nian orators,  among  them  Demosthenes,  Lycur- 

Demorthenes.  &us'  and  HyPerides>  be  delivered  up  to  him, 
and  they  were  saved  only  by  the  intervention 
of  Demades,  a  partizan  of  Alexander.  In  324  B.C.  Har- 
palus,  left  in  charge  by  Alexander  at  Babylon,  rifled  his 
master's  treasury  and  came,  with  five  thousand  talents  and 
six  thousand  men,  to  Athens.  The  men  were  not  admitted 
to  the  city;  Harpalus  himself  was  imprisoned,  and  the 
money  was  entrusted  to  a  commission  of  which  Demos- 
thenes was  a  member.  Harpalus  escaped,- and  when  the 
money  was  counted  much  of  it  was  missing.  Demosthenes 
was  accused  of  embezzlement,  found  guilty  by  the  Areopa- 
gus, and  banished.  Whether  he  was  really  guilty  or  not  can 
never  be  known,  but  the  fact  that  he  was  recalled  from 
banishment  after  Alexander's  death,  in  323,  and  was  enthu- 
siastically received  by  the  Athenians,  may  indicate  that  his 
condemnation  was  due  to  political  causes.  Since  Alexan- 
der was  dead,  the  Greek  cities  rose  against  the  Macedo- 
nians, but  Antipater  defeated  them  in  the  battle  of  Crannon. 
Demosthenes  fled  from  Athens  and  took  refuge  in  the  tem- 
ple of  Poseidon  at  Calauria,  where,  on  the  12th  of  October, 
322  B.  c,  he  took  poison  to  avoid  falling  into  the  hands  of 
the  Macedonians.  Aristotle  died  in  the  autumn  of  the 
same  year. 

Thirty-two  private  speeches  have  come  down  to  us 
under  the  name  of  Demosthenes,  but  of  these  only  eleven 
are  probably  genuine.    They  show  the  same  qualities  which 


DEMOSTHENES  345 

made  Demosthenes  a  great  political  leader — firm  grasp  of 
facts,  accurate  knowledge  of  details,  clearness  of  narrative 
and  description,  cogency  of  argument,  and  honest  sincerity 

of  purpose.  There  is  not  the  easy  grace  of 
e  priva  e      LySiaSj  nor  does  Demosthenes  hide  his  own 

nature  so  completely  behind  that  of  his  client ; 
nevertheless  these  speeches  must  have  had  great  influence 
upon  the  dicasts.  They  are  the  speeches  of  a  great  orator, 
and  it  is  not  strange  that  Demosthenes  was  a  successful 
logographer.  But  it  is  in  his  political  speeches  that  his 
genius  finds  full  play.  In  these  his  ability  as  a  narrator 
enables  him  to  bring  before  his  hearers,  step  by  step,  the 
progress  of  Philip,  or  perhaps  the  misconduct  of  iEschines ; 
his  knowledge  of  details  permits  him  to  give. an  account  of 
the  resources  of  Athens  and  the  best  means  of  increasing 

them,  his  clearness  and  force  in  argument  make 

ty  e  an  ^g  conciusions  almost  irresistible,  and  his  evi- 

composition. 

dent  earnestness  adds  to  all  he  says  the  weight 
of  a  serious  and  well-grounded  conviction.  And  all  these 
qualities  are  enhanced  by  the  rhythmic  cadence  of  his  sen- 
tences and  the  vigorous  and  animated  beauty  of  his  style. 
He  does  not,  like  Gorgias  or  Antiphon,  employ  an  unvary- 
ing series  of  antitheses,  but  neither  does  he  avoid  antithesis 
where  it  is  effective.  He  employs  all  kinds  of  figures  of 
speech  and  of  thought.  His  vocabulary  is  that  of  ordinary 
life,  but  he  knows  how  to  use  poetic  words  or  allusions 
when  his  speech  soars  above  the  ordinary  level.  He  some- 
times adds  vividness  to  his  argumentation  or  narrative  by 
introducing  an  imaginary  conversation  or  a  series  of  ques- 
tions.    An  example  of  this  is  in  the  First  Philippic : * 

When  then,  men  of  Athens,  when  will  you  do  what  you  ought  ? 
When  what  takes  place  ?  "When,  by  Zeus,  there  is  some  pressure 
of  necessity."  But  what  ought  you  to  think  of  what  is  now  hap- 
pening ?  for  I  think  that  to  free  men  the  greatest  pressure  is  shame 
for  what  is  going  on.     Or  do  you  wish,  tell  me,  to  go  about  and  ask 

1  Philippic  I,  p.  43,  10. 


346  GREEK  LITERATURE 

each  other,  "Is  there  anything  new  ?"  For  what  could  be  newer 
than  that  a  man  of  Macedon  is  defeating  the  Athenians  in  war,  and 
directing  the  affairs  of  the  Greeks  ?  "Is  Philip  dead  ?  "  "  No,  by 
Zeus,  but  he  is  ill. "  But  what  difference  does  it  make  to  you  ? 
for  if  anything  happens  to  him,  you  will  quickly  make  another 
Philip,  if  this  is  the  way  in  which  you  attend  to  things.  For  he 
has  not  grown  great  so  much  by  his  own  strength  as  by  your  care- 
lessness. 

Even  in  a  translation  something  of  the  vividness,  the 
rapidity,  and  the  fiery  passion  of  the  orator  appears.  The 
Descriptive  most  famous  passage  of  descriptive  narrative  is 
narrative.        in  the  oration  On  the  Crown : 1 

It  was  evening,  and  some  one  came  and  reported  to  the  pry- 
tanes  that  Elatea  had  been  taken.  And  after  this  they  rose  in  the 
midst  of  their  dinner  and  drove  out  those  in  the  booths  in  the 
market  place  and  set  fire  to  the  wickerwork,  and  others  sent  for 
the  generals  and  called  the  trumpeter;  and  the  city  was  full  of 
tumult.  And  the  next  day  at  daybreak  the  prytanes  called  the 
senate  to  the  senate-house,  and  you  went  to  the  assembly,  and  be 
fore  the  senate  had  transacted  its  business  and  passed  a  vote,  the 
whole  people  was  sitting  there. 

Here  the  greatest  simplicity  leads  to  the  greatest  vivid- 
ness. 

A  passage  from  the  Fourth  Philippic  may  serve  as  an 
example  of  vehemence  of  statement  and  also  of  boldness 
and  lucidity  of  argument : 

But  there  are  some  who  before  they  have  heard  the  arguments 
about  matters  are  accustomed  to  ask  at  once,  "Well,  then,  what's  to 
be  done  ? "  Not  that  when  they  have  heard  it  they  may  do  it  (for 
then  they  would  be  the  most  excellent  of  men),  but  that  they  may 
get  rid  of  the  speaker.  But,  nevertheless,  I  must  tell  what's  to  be 
done.  First,  men  of  Athens,  you  must  recognize  this  surely  in  your 
hearts,  that  Philip  is  making  war  and  has  broken  the  peace,  and  is 
evil  disposed  and  hostile  to  the  state  and  the  foundation  of  the 
state,  and  I  will  add  also  to  the  gods  in  the  state  (and  may  they 

1  On  the  Crown,  p.  284,  169. 


DEMOSTHENES  347 

destroy  him  !),  but  also  that  he  is  making  war  upon  and  plotting 
against  nothing  more  than  the  constitution,  and  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  world  that  he  regards  more  than  how  he  can  destroy  it. 
And  this,  in  a  way,  he  is  now  doing  of  necessity.    For 

rgumen  a-      consi(jer.  ne  wishes  to  rule,  and  he  has  found  you  his 
tive  style.  . 

only  opponents  therein.     He  has  been  doing  wrong 

for  a  long  time,  and  he  is  himself  most  perfectly  conscious  of  that 
fact ;  for  it  is  by  means  of  your  possessions  of  which  he  is  able  to 
make  use  that  he  possesses  all  the  rest  firmly;  for  if  he  were  to 
give  up  Amphipolis  and  Potidaea,  he  could  not  even  stay  safely  in 
Macedonia.  Both  things  then  he  knows,  that  he  is  himself  plotting 
against  you  and  that  you  know  it.  And  believing  that  you  are  sen- 
sible, he  thinks  that  you  hate  him  justly.  But  besides  these  things 
which  are  so  important,  he  knows  perfectly  well  that  even  if  he  be- 
come master  of  all  the  rest,  he  can  not  hold  anything  surely  so  long 
as  you  have  a  democratic  government,  but  if  any  reverse  happen  to 
him  (and  many  things  might  happen  to  a  man),  all  that  is  now  kept 
down  by  force  will  come  and  take  refuge  with  you.1 

In  his  legal  speeches  Demosthenes  follows  the  usual 
arrangement :  introduction,  narrative,  argument,  and  pero- 
ration; but  even  in  these  speeches  he  shows  originality  in 
the  form  of  the  different  parts  and  through  them  all  returns 
constantly  to  his  main  point.  This  quality  is  more  marked 
in  the  political  speeches,  in  which  the  traditional  form  had 
not  been  so  firmly  fixed  by  his  predecessors.  With  persist- 
ent energy  Demosthenes  returns  again  and  again  to  the 
main  subject  of  each  speech,  inserting  argument  in  his 
narration  by  means  of  a  sudden  question,  or  perhaps  only 
by  an  ironical  allusion,  exhorting,  rebuking,  appealing  to 
feelings  of  pride  and  shame,  of  patriotism  and  profit.  His 
are  not  the  stately,  elaborate,  carefully  balanced  periods  of 

Isocrates,  which  become  oppressive  by  their 
ane  y  in        yery  eiegance .  nis  sentences  are  long  or  short, 

combined  in  periods  or  isolated,  as  the  varying 
emotions  of  the  orator  demand  one  or  the  other  form  of 
utterance.     In  fact,  variety  is  the  most  striking  quality  of 

1  Philippic  IV,  p.  134,  11-13. 


348  GREEK  LITERATURE 

his  style,  the  second  being  vehemence.  Demosthenes  hardly 
ever  appeals  to  the  tenderer  emotions,  as  love  and  pity, 
but  he  arouses  all  the  sterner  emotions  as  no  one  had  ever 
done  before,  and  his  argumentation,  exact  and  convincing, 
forces  the  intellect  of  his  hearers  to  support  their  emotions. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  orations  as  we  now  have  them 
were  edited  for  publication  and  are  not  in  the  form  in  which 
they  were  delivered,  but  the  qualities  we  see  in  them  are 
the  same  which  his  contemporaries  ascribed  to  the  spoken 
orations  of  Demosthenes.  Editing  doubtless  changed  some 
details,  but  the  substance  and  the  general  form  of  the 
orations  is  substantially  such  as  aroused  and  convinced  the 
Athenian  audience. 

Struggling  against  great  odds,  Demosthenes  aroused  the 
Athenians  against  the  Macedonian  power  and  held  them 
to  their  purpose  even  to  the  last.  It  may  be  that  his  patri- 
otism was  narrow,  that  the  world  gained  by  the  overthrow 
Wisdom  of  °^  Greek  independence  and  the  consequent 
his  political  spread  of  Greek  civilization,  which  was  carried 
course.  j^y  ^e  Macedonians  even  to  distant  India,  but 

it  is  certain  that  without  his  heroic  struggle  the  world 
would  be  poorer.  Not  only  has  his  eloquence  served  as  a 
model  for  later  ages,  but  the  courage  with  which  he  inspired 
the  Athenians,  leading  them  to  fight  for  their  ideal  of 
patriotism  in  an  age  when  material  advantage  was  more 
than  ever  before  the  mainspring  of  men's  action,  will  make 
his  name  revered  wherever  a  weaker  people  is  struggling 
against  an  overwhelming  alien  force. 


CHAPTEE  XXXII 

-SJSCHINES  AND  OTHER  ORATORS 

^schines,  390  to  after  330  b.  a— Hyperides,  389-322  b.  c— Lycur- 
gus,  about  390-324  b.  c. — Dinarchus,  before  342  to  after  292  b.  c. — 
Phocion,  about  400-317  b.  c. — Demades,  about  385-319  b.  c. — Deme- 
trius of  Phalerum,  about  350  to  about  280  b.  c. 

Demosthenes  is  without  doubt  the  greatest  of  Greek 
orators.  But  in  his  own  day  he  had  competitors  for  the 
public  ear,  some  of  whom  supported  his  political  views, 
while  others  opposed  them.  Among  his  opponents  the 
most  important  is  iEschines.  He  was  born  at 
Athens  in  390  or  389  b.  c,  and  was  therefore  five 
or  six  years  older  than  Demosthenes.  His  father,  Atrome- 
tus,  was  a  poor  schoolmaster  according  to  Demosthenes,  but 
^Eschines  himself  claims  to  belong  to  a  family  of  good  posi- 
tion, though  not  of  wealth.  His  mother's  name  was  Glau- 
cothea.  He  had  two  brothers,  Aphobetus  and  Philochares, 
both  of  whom  held  important  public  positions.  iEschines 
served  with  credit  in  the  army,  and  was,  before  entering 
upon  public  life,  a  tragic  actor  and  a  clerk  of  the  assembly. 
Demosthenes  describes  his  utter  failure  as  an  actor,  but 
nothing  is  less  trustworthy  than  the  testimony  of  Demos- 
thenes about  iEschines.  Personal  attacks  upon  political 
or  legal  opponents  were  ordinary  parts  of  Athenian  speeches, 
and  Demosthenes  shows  in  his  attacks  upon  ^Eschines  not 
only  great  power  of  invective  but  also  great  imagination. 
iEschines  had  a  fine  voice  and  good  figure,  and  it  is  likely 
enough  that  he  was  at  least  a  fair  actor.     In  his  boyhood 

349 


350  GREEK  LITERATURE 

his  education  was  probably  not  very  careful,  owing  to  the 
poverty  of  the  family,  and  his  career  as  an  actor  may  ac- 
count in  part  for  his  ability  as  an  orator. 

iEschmes  first  became  prominent  in  politics  after  the 
fall  of  Olynthus,  in  348  b.  c,  when  he  proposed  that  em- 
bassies be  sent  about  to  form  an  alliance  of  all  Greeks 
against  Philip.  Two  years  later  he  was,  in  common  with 
Demosthenes,  eager  for  peace  and  took  part  in  two  em- 
Political  bassies  to  Philip.  Demosthenes  charges  that 
career  of  from  this  time  he  was  in  Philip's  pay.  Pos- 
■ffischines.  sibly  /Eschines  saw  that  resistance  to  the 
Macedonian  power  was  sure  to  end  in  defeat.  He  may 
have  honestly  believed  that  peace  and  friendship  with 
Philip  was  best  for  Athens,  but  if  he  did,  it  is  probable 
that  he  allowed  himself  to  be  paid  for  doing  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  best.  He  was  accused  of  treason  by  Timarchus 
in  346,  and  in  345  delivered  his  speech  Against  Timarchus, 
in  which  he  shows  that  Timarchus  leads  such  a  vicious  life 
as  to  be  disqualified  from  speaking  in  the  assembly.  In 
343  the  speech  On  the  Embassy,  in  reply  to  that  of  Demos- 
thenes on  the  same  subject  (called  The  False  Legation),  re- 
sulted in  his  acquittal.  He  was  the  most  important  orator 
of  the  Macedonian  party  and  delivered  many  speeches  in 
the  course  of  his  political  career,  but  these  speeches. were 
probably  never  written.  He  was  able  to  speak  without 
writing  his  orations,  and  seems  to  have  prepared  for  pub- 
lication only  those  which  defend  his  own  character  and 
political  conduct.  Only  three  orations  have  come  down  to 
us,  the  two  already  mentioned  and  the  speech  Against 
Ctesiphon  (330  B.  a),  to  which  Demosthenes's  oration  On  the 
Crown  is  the  reply.  These  are  probably  the  only  speeches 
iEschines  ever  wrote,  and  these  were  no  doubt  more  or  less 
changed  after  they  were  delivered.  The  suit  against  Ctes- 
iphon was  lost  by  iEschmes.  He  did  not  even  obtain  one 
fifth  of  the  votes,  was  fined  one  thousand  drachmas,  and 
deprived  of  the  right  to  bring  any  similar  suit.    Hereupon 


^SCHINES  AND  OTHER  ORATORS  351 

he  left  Athens  and  is  said  to  have  established  a  school  of 
oratory  at  Khodes,  but  of  his  subsequent  life  nothing  is 
known. 

As  an  orator  iEschines  is  inferior  to  Demosthenes  in 
the  power  that  comes  from  earnest  convictions  and  nobility 
of  nature.     He  is  hardly  if  at  all  inferior  to  him  in  narra- 
tive, but  in  argument  he  falls  far  below  him. 
style  of  jj-g  p0wer  0f  expression,  his  command  of  lan- 

guage, is  remarkable.  Like  Demosthenes,  he 
employs  all  the  figures  of  speech  and  of  thought.  He  does 
not  so  often  as  Demosthenes  gain  emphasis  by  repeating 
the  same  idea  in  different  words,  nor  does  he  so  often  intro- 
duce the  form  of  dialogue.  He  appeals  to  all  the  emotions, 
especially  to  those  that  cluster  round  the  family  hearth, 
but  his  lack  of  moral  depth  makes  him  unable  to  arouse 
great  and  exalted  enthusiasm.  A  great  orator  and  master 
of  style  he  certainly  was,  but  not,  like  Demosthenes,  at  the 
same  time  a  great  man. 

Hyperides.  son  of  Glaucippus,  of  the  deme  of  Collytus, 
was  born  389  b.  c.  He  became  a  pupil  of  Isocrates  and  took 
up  the  profession  of  a  logographer,  though  he 
appears  to  have  belonged  to  a  wealthy  family. 
He  was  diligent  in  his  business,  but  at  the  same  time  fond 
of  luxury  and  pleasure.  He  made  his  appearance  in  public 
life  as  early  as  360  b.  c,  and  became  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant orators  of  the  anti-Macedonian  party.  He  struggled 
side  by  side  with  Demosthenes  against  Philip,  and  the  two 
orators  were  not  divided  in  their  political  views  until  toward 
the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Alexander.  Demosthenes  then 
believed  that  it  was  useless  to  bring  down  upon  Athens  the 
wrath  of  the  Macedonians,  but  Hyperides  was  still  out- 
spoken in  his  desire  for  war.  When  Harpalus  came  with 
his  men  and  money  Hyperides  wished  to  rise  with  his  aid 
against  Alexander,  and  he  was  among  the  most  prominent 
accusers  of  Dem ostomies  after  the  flight  of  Harpalus. 
During  the  exile  of  Demosthenes,  Hyperides  was  the  leader 


352  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  the  anti-Macedonian  party  at  Athens,  and  in  the  Lamian 
War  he  was  chosen  to  speak  the  funeral  oration  over  those 
who  fell  at  Lamia.  After  the  battle  of  Crannon  he  was 
obliged  to  flee  from  Athens,  was  captured,  handed  over  to 
Antipater,  tortured  and  put  to  death  in  322  b.  c. 

The  ancients  had  seventy-seven  speeches  ascribed  to 
Hyperides,  fifty-two  of  which  were  regarded  by  the  critics 
as  genuine.  Only  fragments  of  these  were  known  in  mod- 
ern times  until,  at  different  times  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, Egyptian  papyrus  manuscripts  were  found  containing 
six  orations  in  more  or  less  perfect  preservation.  These 
are :  For  Lycophron  (about  350  b.  a),  Against 
Works  of  Philippides  (about  335),  For  Euxenippus  (about 
330),  Against  Athenogenes  (about  325),  Against 
Demosthenes  in  the  Affair  of  Harpalus  (324),  and  the  Fu- 
neral Oration  in  honor  of  the  Athenians  who  fell  at  Lamia 
(323).  The  best  preserved  are  the  speeches  Against  Athe- 
nogenes and  For  Euxenippus,  which  exhibit  Hyperides  as  a 
writer  of  speeches  for  others.  His  political  speeches  were 
probably  not  written,  or,  at  any  rate,  not  published.  The 
Funeral  Oration  shows  his  ability  in  the  composition  of  an 
elaborate  public  address. 

The  ancient  critics  praised  the  grace  of  Hyperides,  as 
distinguished  from  the  power  of  Demosthenes.  Yet  Hyper- 
ides does  not  lack  ^ower,  but  combines  it  with 
Syle  -A  grace,  as  nc  joins  wit  to  passion  and  elegance 

to  simplicity.  Some  of  the  ancients  ranked 
him  as  an  orator  even  above  Demosthenes,  but  the  best 
critics  of  ancient  and  modern  times  agree  in  placing  De- 
mosthenes before  all  his  rivals.  In  the  speech  Against 
Demosthenes  Hyperides  shows  at  times  a  vehemence  second 
only  to  that  of  Demosthenes  himself,  but  his  most  perfect 
work  seems  to  have  been  done  in  speeches  on  rather  unim- 
portant subjects,  in  which  more  or  less  humor  is  appropriate. 
Such  is  the  speech  Against  Athenogenes,  a  perfumer  who 
cheated  a  young  man  to  whom  he  sold  his  factory  and  his 


^ESCHINES  AND  OTHER  ORATORS  353 

slaves.     The  example  of  his  eloquence  best  known  in  mod- 
ern times  is  the  concluding  passage  of  the  Funeral  Oration : 

Hard  it  is,  perhaps,  to  comfort  those  who  are  in  such  troubles ; 
for  mourning  is  not  laid  to  rest  by  speech  nor  by  law,  but  each  man's 
nature  and  his  friendship  for  the  dead  fixes  the  bounds  of  his  griev- 
ing. And  yet  we  must  be  of  good  courage  and  diminish  our  grief 
as  far  as  possible,  and  remember  not  only  the  death  of  those  who 
are  gone,  but  also  the  valor  they  have  left  behind  them.  For  if 
their  fortune  deserves  mourning,  their  deeds  deserve  great  praises. 
And  if  they  had  no  share  of  mortal  old  age,  they  have  attained  age- 
less glory  and  been  fortunate  in  all  things.  For  as  to  those  of  them 
who  have  died  childless,  the  praises  of  the  Greeks  will  be  their  im- 
mortal children.  And  for  those  who  have  left  children,  the  good- 
will of  their  country  will  be  established  as  their  children's  guardian. 
And  besides  this,  if  death  is  like  never  having  been  born,  they  have 
escaped  from  diseases  and  grief  and  the  other  casualties  of  mortal 
life ;  but  if  there  is  consciousness  in  Hades  and  care  from  the  divin- 
ity, as  we  are  told,  it  is  natural  that  those  who  defended  the  honors 
of  the  godswhen  they  were  attacked  should  meet  with  the  divinity's 
most  tender  care. 

Lycurgus  was  born  about  390  B.  C,  the  son  of  Lyco- 
phron,  of  the  noble  family  of  the  Butadae.  He  was  a  pupil  of 
Isocrates,  and,  it  is  said,  of  Plato.  His  wealth 
made  it  unnecessary  for  him  to  write  speeches 
for  others.  He  belonged  to  the  anti-Macedonian  Party  of 
Demosthenes*  and  Hyperides,  but  his  chief  activity  was 
in  administration  of  government  finances.  From  338  to 
326  B.  c.  he  managed  the  finances  of  the  state  either  in  his 
own  name  as  secretary  of  the  treasury  or  through  others 
whom  he  caused  to  be  elected  to  that  office.  He  accom- 
plished many  reforms  and  put  the  treasury  upon  a  firm 
basis.  Of  his  fifteen  speeches  two  were  in  his  own  defense, 
the  rest  against  men  who  had  either  stolen  from  the  treas- 
ury or  acted  treasonably  in  some  way.  Only  one  speech  is 
preserved  to-  us,  that  Against  Leocrates,  a  man  who  deserted 
at  the  battle  of  Chseronea,  and  only  returned  to  Athens  in 
331,  when  he  hoped  his  conduct  would  have  been  forgotten. 


354  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Lycurgus  found  him  out  and  brought  a  charge  against  him. 
The  chief  interest  of  the  speech  lies  in  its  high  tone  of 
moral  indignation.  The  reasoning  is  sharp,  but  not  always 
correct,  and  the  orator  is  evidently  inspired  by  a  lofty,  pa- 
triotic indignation.  The  style  is  vigorous,  but  lacks  grace 
in  spite  of  the  harmonious  phrases  which  show  the  pupil  of 
Isocrates.  The  uncompromising  character  of  Lycurgus 
made  him  enemies,  and  after  his  death  (in  324  B.  c.)  his 
children  were  put  in  prison  on  account  of  an  alleged  deficit 
in  his  accounts.  In  an  extant  fragment  of  his  speech  in 
their  defense  Hyperides  says  :  "  What  will  those  say  of  him 
who  pass  by  his  tomb  ?  '  This  man  lived  righteously,  and 
when  put  in  charge  of  the  finances  he  found  means,  and 
he  built  the  theatre,  the  music-hall,  the  docks,  and  he  con- 
structed triremes  and  harbors.  This  man  our  city  deprived 
of  civic  rights,  and  his  children  she  imprisoned.' " 

A  prominent  logographer  of  this  period  was  jDinarchus, 
son  of  Sostratus,  of  Corinth,  who  came  to  Athens  about 
342  b.  c.  Being  a  foreigner  he  could  take  no 
direct  part  in  politics,  but  wrote  speeches  for 
others.  Many  such  speeches  were  attributed  to  him,  but 
only  three  are  preserved,  all  of  which  are  concerned  with  the 
Harpalus  affair.  The  first  of  these,  Against  Demosthenes, 
is  more  interesting  than  the  two  Against  Aristogiton  and 
Against  Philocles.  Dinarchus  appears  in  these  speeches  as 
an  imitator  of  Demosthenes,  influenced  also  by  the  other 
orators  of  his  own  and  the  preceding  generation.  In  his 
later  years  Dinarchus  had  great  political  influence.  In 
307,  when  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  restored  to  power  the 
democratic  party,  which  had  been  kept  down  under  De- 
metrius of  Phalerum,  Dinarchus  was  condemned  to  death. 
He  retired  to  Chalcis  in  Eubcea,  and  only  returned  in  292 
through  the  influence  of  Theophrastus.  The  date  of  his 
death  is  unknown. 

Phocion,  best  known  as  a  general  and  statesman,  was 
also  an  orator  of  distinction.     His  family  belonged  to  the 


^SCHINES  AND  OTHER  ORATORS  355 

middle  class,  but  in  his  personal  bearing  and  political  sym- 
pathies he  was  an  aristocrat.     He  was  dissatisfied  with  the 
democracy  of  Athens,  and  resembled  Xenophon  in  his_ad- 
miration  for.  Sparta — rather  an  ideal   Sparta, 
ocion.  however,  than  the  real  Sparta  of  his  time.     In 

spite  of  his  disapproval  of  the  democracy  he  served  his 
country  all  his  life,  being  chosen  general  no  less  than  forty 
five  times.  As  an  orator  he  was  constantly  in  favor  of 
peacfi,  though  his  life  was  passed  for  the  most  part  in  war. 
His  language  was  dignified,  trenchant,  and  vigorous,  and  his 
words  had  additional  weight  on  account  of  his  high  char- 
acter. He  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  the  people  disagreeable 
truths,  but  even  that  failed  to  make  him  unpopular.  Of 
his  speeches  only  scattered  fragments  are  preserved.  They 
show  his  liking  for  brief  and  sententious  utterance,  his 
fearlessness,  and  his  somewhat  rough  humor.  Phocion  was 
a  partizan  of  Philip  and  Alexander,  and  under  their  reigns 
was  able  to  be  of  service  to  Athens.  Under  Antipater 
he  accepted  the  limited  aristocracy  and  lived  in  safety; 
but  Polysperchon  suspected  him,  delivered  him  over 
to  the  anger  of  the  democracy,  which  was  temporarily 
revived,  and  thus  brought  about  his  death.  He  drank 
the  hemlock  in  317  b.  c.  He  was  then  over  eighty  years 
of  age. 

One  of  the  most  important  orators  of  the  Maiie^oniaji 
parj^was  Denoad£S.     He  was,  however,  not  really  a  profes- 
sional orator,  and  no  speeches  by  him  are  pre- 

D6m.cid.6S 

served.  He  probably  delivered  them  without 
writing  them,  and  for  that  matter  without  much  prepara- 
tion, for  he  was  a  witty,  clever  man  with  a  gift  for  pnhlio 
speaking".  Some  fragmentary  sayings  of  his  are  preserved, 
but  nothing  which  gives  any  idea  of  his  oratory.  Several 
other  orators  of  this  period  are  known  by  name,  and 
speeches  are  preserved  under  the  name  of  Demosthenes, 
which  belong  to  some  of  his  contemporaries ;  but  it  is  use- 
less for  us  to  do  more  than  try  to  remember  that  the  few 


356  GREEK  LITERATURE 

works  preserved  to  us  are  only  a  small  part  of  the  speeches 
actually  delivered  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes. 

The  last  of  the  Attic  orators  is  Dein^tnu^sjof_Phalerum, 
who  was  less  an  orator  than  a  statesman  and  man  of  letters. 

He  was  born  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
Phalerum3  °    cen^urJ  a^  Phalerum,  a  few  miles  from  Athens. 

His  father  had  been  a  slave,  but  had  become  a 
citizen  and  a  man  of  wealth.  Demetrius  was  carefully 
educated,  was  the  pupil,  and  became  the  friend,  of  Theo- 
phrastus.  He  was  a  partizan  of  the  Macedonians,  and, 
under  Cassander,  was  ruler  of  Athens  for  ten  years  (SIT- 
SO?  b.  a).  He  was  driven  out  by  Demetrius  Poliorcetes, 
and  went  to  Egypt,  where  he  is  said  to  have  suggested  to 
Ptolemy  Soter  the  foundation  of  the  library  at  Alexandria. 
He  died  about  280  b.  c,  leaving  numerous  writings — his- 
torical, political,  and  learned — in  addition  to  his  speeches. 
Of  all  these  only  scattered  fragments  remain.  Demetrius 
is  himself  hardly  to  be  classed  as  one  of  the  Attic  orators, 
for  his  s_rjirit  is  rather  that  of  the  Alexandrian  period. 
After  his  time  eloquence  was  no  longer  exercised  in  politics 
at  Athens,  for  Athenian  politics  had  ceased  to  have  any 
importance,  and  the  brilliant  simplicity  which  Attic  ora- 
tory had  attained  under  Demosthenes  and  his  contem- 
poraries passed  away.  Henceforth  Greek  eloquence  was_ 
an  artificial  product  of  the  schools,  no  longer  the  living 
offspring  of  national  life. 


BOOK  III 

THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD 

Hellenistic  civilization — The  common  dialect — Centres  of  culture — 
Athens — Alexandria — Pergamum  and  other  centres — Vast  quantity  of 
literature— Schools  of  philosophy— The  Cynics— Diogenes  of  Sinope,  (?)- 
323  b.  c— Crates  of  Thebes,  about  315  b.  c. — Bion  of  Borysthenis,  about 
280  b.  c. — Menippus,  about  280  b.  c— The  Stoics — Zeno,  about  336 
to  about  264  b.  c.  —  Cleanthes,  331-232  b.  c.  —  Chrysippus,  about 
280  to  about  205  b.  c. — Other  Stoics — The  Stoic  doctrines — Epicurus, 
342-270  b.c— The  Epicurean  doctrines— Skepticism— Pyrrho,  about 
360  to  about  270  b.c. — Timon,  about  315  to  about  225  b.c — The 
Middle  and  New  Academy — Arcesilas  of  Pitane,  about  315-241  b.  c. — 
Carneades,  about  215-129  b.  c. 

The  conquests  of  Alexander  made  a  great  change  in 
Greece.     For  more  than  a  century  and  a  half — ever  since 
the  Persian  invasions — Athens  had  been  the 
caused  by  the  centre  of  Greek  life  and  thought,  even  when 
reign  of  she  had  not  been  politically  the  most  power- 

Alexander.  iui  Greek  city.  Now  the  Athenian  power 
was  broken,  and  not  the  Athenian  power  alone,  but 
the  less  important  power  of  every  other  Greek  state  was 
swallowed  up  in  a  vast  empire.  Alexander  and  his  suc- 
cessors spread  Greek  civilization  to  distant  regions,  and 
founded  Greek  cities  in  the  midst  of  foreign  populations. 
These  cities  were  centres  of  Greek  thought  and  Greek 
literature,  though  the  Greek  influence  was  for  the  most 

357 


358  GREEK  LITERATURE 

part  superficial,  not  affecting  even  the  entire  population  of 
the  cities,  and  hardly  felt  beyond  the  city  walls.  Alexan- 
dria, Antioch,  Tarsus,  and  Pergamum  all  became  centres 
of  the  new  Greek  civilization — Hellenistic  civilization  as  it 
is  called,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Hellenic  civilization  of 
the  days  when  Greece  was  free.  The  literature  of  Greece 
during  the  period  of  Greek  independence  had  developed 
with  the  city  and  its  people,  reflecting  the  thoughts  and 
conditions  of  the  citizens..  It  had  been  a  popular  litera- 
ture, addressed  to  the  people,  understood  by  the  people, 
and  (but  for  the  traditional  use  of  certain  dialects  for 
certain  kinds  of  poetry)  composed  in  the  language  of  the 
people,  /in  the  Alexandrian  period  the  independent  life  of 
the  cities  has  ceased.  Literature  is  no  longer  an  expression 
of  the  progress  of  the  people,  and  ceases  to  appeal  to  the 
masses.  The  writers  no  longer  address  the  whole  body  of 
their  own  fellow  citizens,  but  scholars,  poets,  and  historians 
write  for  the  cultivated  class  of  the  whole  Greek  reading 
world.  As  a  result  of  this,  there  are  no  longer  marked 
local  differences  in  style  or  language  (though  Syracusan 
writers  retain  their  Doric  dialect),  for  all  writers  are  alike 
familiar  with  the  works  of  their  predecessors  and  with  the 
teachings  of  Isocrates,  while  the  long  predominance  of 
Athens  had  made  Attic  Greek  the  language  of  cultivated 
people./ 

But  Attic  Greek  before  Alexander  was  impregnated 
with  the  delicacy,  clearness,  and  brilliancy  of  the  Attic 
genius.  Now  it  was  written  by  men  not  of  Attic  birth, 
and  often  not  even  Greek  by  descent,  living,  perhaps,  where 
the  greater  part  of  the  population  understood  no  Greek  at 
all.  Naturally  the  language  lost  much  of  its  finer  quali- 
ties.    The  "  common  dialect,"  as  the  literary 

e  «??!«. »   Greek  of  this  period  is  called,  is  Attic  Greek 
mon  dialect.  r  1 

.  with  the  addition  of  numerous  technical  ex- 
pressions, the  loss  of  some  of  the  finer  grammatical  dis- 
tinctions, and  some  minor  changes  in  spelling  and  pronun- 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD     359 

ciation./  In  themselves  these  differences  are  slight,  but 
they  suffice  to  change  the  language  from  a  natural,  living 
expression  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  an  active  and 
progressive  people  to  an  artificial  means  of  intercourse 
between  cultivated  persons,  often  far  apart  and  living  under 
very  different  conditions.  Alexandrian  literature  is  learned  ! 
and  cosmopolitan — a  literature  not  of  the  people,  but  of 
the  school,  the  study,  and  the  library,  written  by  scholars 
for  one  another  and  for  the  cultivated  circles  of  the  courts 
and,  cities.  , 

At  Athens  the  language  of  literature  was  still  in  great 
measure  the  language  of  the  people;  but  the  people  had 
ceased  to  be  interested  in  literature  as  it  had 
been  when  the  great  works  of  Athenian  poets, 
historians,  and  orators  were  a  part  of  the  vigorous  life  of 
an  independent  city.      There  were  still  the  old  festivals, 
with  their  musical  and  literary  performances,  and  the  New 
Comedy  is  still  Attic.     The  schools  of  philosophy  also  lived 
on  at  Athens,  the  Academy  and  the  Lyceum  continuing 
the  traditions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.     Yet  even  at  Athens 
the  change  since  the  days  of  Greek  independence  was  great./ 
Of   the  new  centres  of  literature  Alexandria  was  the 
greatest.     Fifty  years  after  its  foundation  by  Alexander  the 
new  city  had  more  than  three  hundred  thou- 
sand  inhabitants,  and  was   the   greatest   city 
known   to   the    Greeks.     Here   Egyptians,  Orientals,   and 
Greeks  came  together  in  the  greatest  commercial  centre 
of  the  ancient  world.     The  Ptolemies,  the  Greek  rulers  of 
Egypt,  were  cultivated  and  ambitious.    They  adorned  their 
capital  with  Greek  buildings,  and  wished  to  make  it  the 
centre  of  Greek  civilization.     Ptolemy  Soter  began  to  col- 
lect books,  which  he  is  said  to  have  put  under  the  care  of 
Demetrius  of  Phalerum.     But  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  the 
son  of  Ptolemy  Soter,  really  founded  the  literary  greatness 
of  Alexandria  by  establishing  the  Museum,  a  vast  group 
of  buildings,  with  halls  and  gardens,  in  which  were  collec- 
24 


360  GREEK  LITERATURE 

tions  of  all  sorts  for  the  use  of  students,  as  well  as  lecture- 
rooms  and  other  needed  equipment.  Here  the  great.  Alex- 
andrian Library  was  housed — a  library  which  is  said  to  have 
contained  seven  hundred  thousand  volumes  when  it  was 
burned  in  47  B.C.,  after  Caesar's  entrance  to  the  city.  A 
second  library,  in  the  Serapeum,  contained  some  fifty  thou- 
sand volumes,  probably  duplicates  of  some  of  those  in  the 
Museum.  The  great  library  was  under  the  charge  of  a 
librarian,  assisted,  no  doubt,  by  a  numerous  staff.  The 
librarians  added  to  the  usefulness  of  the  library  by  cata- 
logues, commentaries,  new  editions,  and  all  sorts  of  literary 
and  grammatical  studies.  They  were  learned  men  of  note — 
first  Zenodotus,  then  Callimachus,  Eratosthenes,  Apollonius 
of  Ehodes,  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,  and  Aristarchus. 

— \Next  to  Alexandria,  Pergamum  was  the  greatest  literary 
centre.  Her  wealthy  kings  were  not  contented  with  adorn- 
ing their  city  with  brilliant  works  of  ^ichitec- 
ture__^nd  smilptuie-  They  founded  also  a  rich 
library,  which,  though  smaller  than  that  at  Alexandria,  was 
great  enough  to  attract  to  Pergamum  a  number  of  impor- 
tant literaryjnen,  scholars,  and  philosophers.  4ptioch  also 
had  a  famous  library  and  learned  librarians.  The  best 
known  of  these  is  Euphorion  of  Chalcis,  who  came  to  Anti- 
och  in  the  third  century  under  Antiochus  III.  Syracuse, 
under  Hiero  II,  was  a  literary  centre  of  some  importance, 
and  produced_the  greatest  poet  and  the  greatest  mathema- 
tician of  this  period,  ThftQCHtns  and  ArjQJ2iinftjlfta.  There 
were  other  less  important  centres  :  Cos,  famed  for  the  poet 
Philetas ;  Ehodes,  with  its  school  of  rhetoric ;  Tarsus,  a 
city  in  Cilicia,  where  philosophy  and  learning  were  much 
in  vogue ;  and  Soli,  near  Tarsus,  the  birthplace  of  the 
Peripatetic  Clearchus  and  the  Stoic  Chrysippus. 

In  all  Greek  cities,  wherever  situated,  and  even  in  cities 
where  only  a  small  part  of  the,  population  knew  Greek, 
literary  work  was  carried  on./ Never  had  there  been  so 
much  Greek  written,  and  never  since  the  Homeric  times 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD     361 

had  there  been  so  few  great  writers.  The  names  of  many 
writers  of  the  Alexandrian  period  are  preserved,  but  the 
works  of  only  a  few,  and  even  these  are  for  the 
obliterate  n  7  mos^  Par^  °^  secondary  interest.  There  are 
gems  of  poetry  and  expressions  of  high  thoughts 
to  be  found  in  Alexandrian  literature,  but  they  are  rare./ 
This  period  will  therefore  be  treated  more  briefly  than  the 
earlier  times.  The  centres  of  literary  activity  are  many,  and 
all  branches  of  literature  are  cultivated  at  the  same  time ; 
so  that  a  chronological  or  local  division  of  our  subject  is 
impossible,  while  the  treatment  of  each  branch  of  literature 
by  itself  separates  writers  who  worked  side  by  side.  Such 
difficulties  have  been  met  in  the  treatment  of  the  earlier 
periods,  but  they  now  become  more  noticeable. 

We  have  already  traced  the  progress  of  tragic  (see  page 
245)  and  comic  (see  pages  261  ff.)  poetry  through  the  Alex- 
andrian period;  for  tragedy  and  comedy  were 
comedy7  **  °^  Attic  origin,  and  continued  to  develop  at 
Athens.  They  were  therefore  naturally  treated 
in  their  whole  course  in  connection  with  Attic  literature. 
Philosophy,  too,  continued  to  have  its  chief  seat  at  Athens. 
The  "_01d  Academy  " — Speusippus,  Xenocrates,  Polemo, 
Crates,  and  Grantor — united  the  doctrines  of  Plato_wiih 
those  of  Aristotle  and  Pyfhag^^s  or  wrote  attractively 
subjects  of  moral  interest  (see  page  312).  The  ^Peripatetic/ 
School  or  Lyceum,  headed  successively  by  Theophrastus, 
Strato,  Lycon,  Ariston,  and  Critolaus,  accepted  the,  meta- 
physics of  Aristotle_jrithouiL^han^^but  devoted  itself,  for 
the  most  part  at  least,  to  historical  and  scientific  research 
(see  page  321)/  The  jbyrenaic/  School  of  Aris- 
phiiosophy.  tippus  (see  page  302),  whlcOegarded  pleasure 
as  the  chief  good,  was  represented  during  this 
period  by  Theodorus  the  "atheist"  and  Hegesias,  both  of 
whom  spent  part  of  their  lives  at  Alexandria,  >and  a  few 
others.  The  Hegarfan) School  of  Euclides  is  continued  by 
Stilpo  (see  page  302). 


362  GREEK  LITERATURE 

The/ Cynic  School/  (see  page  302)  of  Antisthenes  was 
continued  by  Diogenes  of  Sinope,  who  spent  most  of  his 
-,,    c    .  life  in  Athens,  and   died   as   an   old   man   at 

Corinth  in  323  B.  c. /Antisthenes  had  denied 
that  pleasure,  wealth,  and  the  like  are  really  desirable. 
Diogenes,  acting  in  accordance  with  his  master's  teaching, 
dressed  in  a  ragged  cloak,  lived  in  a  cask,  and  possessed 
only  a  staff  and  a  wallets/His  chief  pupil  was  Crates  of 
Thebes,  whose  rich  and  beautiful  wife,  Hipparchia,  followed 
him  in  his  wandering  beggar's  life.  Crates  taught  for  the 
most  part  at  Athens,  and  is  distinguished  as  the  first 
teacher  of  Zeno.  Bion  of  Borysthenis  was  another  noted 
Cynic.  Originally  a  slave,  he  was  set  free  and  made  rich 
by  the  will  of  his  master.  He  went  to  Athens,  and  studied 
at  first  in  the  Academy,  but  soon  went  over  to  the  Cynics. 
He  was  a  man  of  noted  humor  and  biting  wit.  Menippus 
of  Gadara,  in  Coele-Syria,  who  lived  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fourth  and  the  first  part  of  the  third  century  B.  c,  was 
a  Phoenician  slave.  He  came  to  Sinope,  was  set  free,  and 
became  rich  by  money-lending.  Finally  he  lost  his  fortune 
and  killed  himself.  The  works  ascribed  to  him  were  satires 
and  satiric  parodies.  The  novelty  of  his  writing  consisted 
in  combining, prose  and  verse  in  an  amusing  and  burlesque 
manner,  in  which  he  was  imitated  by^th"e~Iloman  Varro. 
Lucian,  the  brilliant  satirist  and  sophist  of  the  second  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  introduces  Menippus  in  several  of  his 
essays ;  and  it  is  probably  from  these  that  we  can  derive 
the  best  idea  of  his  qualities,  his  bold  satire  and  caustic  wit. 
The  (Sjoic^ciiool  was  founded  by  5feno_oJLJIiiinm,  in 
Cyprus,  a  Phoenician  colony,  in  which  the  Greek  civiliza- 
tion was  not  native,  but  at  best  only  natural- 
The  stoics.  ized  ZenQ  wag  born  aboufc  336  B  c>  At  the 
Zeno. 

age  of  twenty-two  he  went  to  Athens  on  busi- 
ness, became  acquainted  with  the  Cynic  Crates,  and  gave 
up  business  for  philosophy.  He  soon  left  Crates  for  Stilpo 
the  Megarian,  then  became   a   pupil  of  the  Academician 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD     363 

Polemo.  He  also  studied  the  works  of  earlier  philosophers, 
especially  of  Heraclitus,  whose  doctrines  were  to  be  accepted 
almost  entirely  by  the  Stoic  School.  After  some  twenty 
years  of  study  Zeno  established  a  school  of  his  own.  He 
met  his  disciples  in  the  Painted  Porch,  the  Stoa  Poikile, 
which  gave  the  name  to  the  Stoic  School.  For  thirty  or 
forty  years  he  taught  and  wrote.  He  died  at  the  age  of 
seventy-two.  Of  his  works,  On  the  Whole,  On  the  Nature  of 
Man,  On  the  Emotions,  etc.,  only  fragments  are  left.  He 
despised  rhetoric  and  the  art  of  style,  and  prided  himself 
n£oin_noncisftnesa  and  brevity. 

Zeno's  most  distinguished  pupil  and  his  successor  as 
head  of  the  Stoic  School  was  Cleanthes  of  Assos,  in  Mysia. 
He  was  born  in  331  b.  c,  and  was  as  a  young 
man  an  athlete.  At  the  age  of  forty-four  he 
came  to  Athens,  where  he  attended  the  lectures  of  Zeno  in 
the  intervals  of  the  manual  labor  by  which  he  had  to  earn 
his  living.  When  Zeno  died  (about  264  b.  c.)  Cleanthes  was 
chosen  head  of  the  school.  His  works  were  numerous,  but 
only  fragments  remain.  He  even  wrote  poems,  and  a  frag- 
ment of  his  Hymn  to  Zeus  shows  that  he  was  skilled  in  the 
use  of  language  and  could  write  dignified,  harmonious  verse. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  slow  of  thought  rather  than  bril- 
liant. He  starved  himself  to  death  in  232  b.  c,  at  the 
age  of  ninety-nine  years.     The  successor  of  Cleanthes  was 

_      .  Chrysimms.  born   about   280  B.  c,  at  Soli,  in 

Chrysippus.       ^      ■' .    rr~~r  ...  » 

Cilicia.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Cleanthes,  and 
perhaps  also  of  the  philosophers  of  the  Academy.  He 
wrote  seven  hundred  and  fifty  works,  of  which  only  brief 
fragments  remain.  Chrysippus  was  not  a  literary  artist, 
but  the  loss  of  his  works  is  to  be  regretted  on  account  of 
their  importance  for  the  history  of  philosophy,  and  also 
because  he  quoted  most  profusely  from  earlier  writers. 
His  importance  to  the  Stoic  School  was  expressed  in  the 
line,  "  If  Chrysippus  had  not  been,  the  Stoa  would  not  be." 
He  died  in  the  143d  Olympiad,  209-205  b.  c.     Other  Stoics 


364  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  the  third  century  are  Persaeus  of  Citium,  Dionysius  of 
Heraclea,  Sphaerus  of  the  Bosporus,  Herillus  of  Carthage, 
and  Ariston  of  Chios.  It  is  noticeable  that  none  of  these 
(and  the  same  is  true  of  all  the  other  noted  Stoics  of  this 
period)  is  an  Athenian,  while  several  are,  like  Zeno  himself, 
from  places  inhabited  by  Semitic  peoples. 

The  S^icdoctnne^  as  developed  by  the  early  leaders  of 
the  school,  is  already  complex,  but  is  clear  in  its  main  out- 
lines.    It  has  three  parts  :  logic,  the  science  of 

the  conditions  requisite  for  the  attainment  of 
doctrine.  .       -    •*.  . 

knowledge,  including  grammar  and  rhetoric  as 

well  as  psychology;  physics,  the  science  of  nature;  and 
ethics,  the  science  of  morals.  The  system  is  derived  in 
great  part  from  Heraclitus.  The_world,  or  the  Whole,  is 
governed  by  fixed  laws,  which  are  the  expression  of  the 
divine  thought,  the  world-soul.  The  human  soul  is  only  a 
part  of  the  divine  soul,  and  in  general  the  individual  exists 
only  in  and  through  the  Whole  or  universe.  In  the  human 
soul  reason  is  the  directing  power,  for  reason  alone  can 
comprehend  general*  laws  and  make  individual  conduct 
conform  to  them.  >4lappiness  is  attainable  only  by  living 
in  complete  accord  with  the  laws  of  nature  as  perceived  by 
reason.  This  complete  accord  is  called  virtue,  and  the  wise 
man  considers  virtue  the  only  good.  All  other  things  are 
indifferent.  Duty  is  the  fion™^  nf  qll  happiness  The  wise 
man,  filled  with  these  ideas,  strives  after  perfect  serenity, 
without  which  there  can  be  no  happiness.  The  Stoics 
therefore  sought,  happiness  in  the  soul,  disregarding  all 
material  tfringg/ 

The  ffpicureanjSchool  held  beliefs  in  many  respects  the 
exact  oppositeToTthose  of  the  Stoics.  Its  founder,  Epicu- 
rus, born  in  342  B.  c,  was  an  Athenian,  but 
was  brought  up  at  Samos,  where  his  father 
lived  as  a  cleruch.  In  his  early  manhood  he  taught  school, 
spending  his  spare  time  in  reading.  The  account  of  the 
gods  and  the  origin  of  the  world  in  the  Theogony  of  Hesiod 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD     365 

appeared  to  him  absurd,  while  the  theory  of  Democritus  (see 
page  162)  delighted  him.  He  developed  his  own  system  by 
the  time  he  was  thirty  years  old,  taught  it  at  Lampsacus 
and  Mytilene  for  some  four  years,  and  returned  in  306  B.  c. 
to  Athens,  where  he  bought  a  garden  in  which  he  conversed 
with  his  friends  and  pupils.  The  garden  of  Epicurus  soon 
became  a  rival  of  the  Academy,  the  Lyceum,  and  the  Stoa. 
Epicurus  died  in  270  b.  c,  leaving  behind  him  a  nourishing 
school  and  many  writings,  of  which  there  remain  only  two 
long  philosophic  letters  and  a  summary  of  the  chief  Epi- 
curean doctrines.  The  style  of  Epicurus- was  concise,  full 
of  technical  expressions,  and  without  care  for  beauty.  He 
was  not-speculative  by  nature,  and  did  not  encourage  inde- 
pendent speculation  in  his  pupils.  His  teachings  were  of  a 
practical  character,  and  his  followers  were  expected  to  ac- 
cep^them  as  a  whole. 

A?he  Epicurean  system,  like  the  Stoic,  consists  of  logic, 
physics,  and  ethics.  The  logic  or  canon  of  Epicurus  de- 
The  clares  that  all  knowledge  is  derived  through 

Epicurean  the  senses.  The  universe  is  therefore  com- 
doctnnes.  posed  of  objects  which  can  be  perceived  by 
the  senses.  Such  are  the  atoms  of  Democritus,  and  Epicu- 
rus adopted  the  theory  of  Democritus  that  all  things  con- 
sist of  atoms  grouped  in  different  ways.  Thp  d iff fmrnt. 
groupjiigs  are  explained  by  Epicurus  as  the  result  of 
chaaej^  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Stoic  theory  of  fixed 
laws.  There  is,  according  to  Epicurus,  no  Providence  or 
ruling  power.  He  does  not  deny  the  existence  of  the 
gods,  but  regards  them  as  similar  to  men,  only  living  at 
ease,  without  care  for  anything.  The  soul  he  regards  as  a 
delicate  and  refined  substance  which  permeates  the  body. 
The  purpose  of  ethics,  or  moral  science,  is  the  attainment 
of  happiness.  Since  all  knowledge  is  derived  through  the 
senses,  happiness,  which  is  the  chief  end  of  life,  can  be 
obtained  only— through jensationsj ;  and  since  the  fear  of 
tne  gods  has  been  removed,  all  man  has  to  do  to  attain 


366  GREEK  LITERATURE 

happiness  is  -to  supply  himself  with  pleasant  sensations. 
This  is  the  doctrine  of  pleasure  as  the  chief  good.  But 
Epicurus  showed  that  many  so-called  pleasures  end  in 
pain,  and  that  wisdom  consists  in  choosing  those  .pleas- 
ures which  bring  real  and  lasting  content.  He  was,  like 
the  better  men  among  his  followers,  a  man  of  moderate  and 
temperate  life;  but  his  doctrine,  since  it  does  away  with 
all  duty,  naturally  leads  to  the  irrational  pursuit  of  sensual 
pleasures./ 

The  many  and  conflicting  dogmas  of  the  philosophical 
schools,  both  old  and  new,  naturally  led  to  the  question. 
"  Are  any  of  these  dogmas  true  ?  "  And  this 
ep  icism.  agajn  to  the  further  question,  "  Can  we  know 
the  truth?"  The  doubt  expressed  in  these 
questions  was  developed  into  a  system^  of  skepticism  by 
Pyrrho  of  Elis.  He  was  born  about  360  and  died  about 
270  b.  c.  In  early  life  he  was  a  painter,  then  turned  to  the 
study  of  the  philosophy  of  Democritus.  He  accompanied 
his  teacher,  Anaxarchus,  to  Asia,  following  Alexander's 
army,  then  returned  to  Greece,  where  for  thirty  or  forty 
years  he  taught  the  principles  of  skepticism. /For  him,  as 
for  the  other  ancient  philosophers,  happiness  was  the  chief 
good.  He  found  that  this  was  not  to  be  gained  through 
the  reason  and  duty  of  the  Stoics  nor  the  sensation  and 
pleasure  of  Epicurus.  Truth  he  found  waff  I'mpOPS1'^1^  nf 
attainment.  True  happiness  therefore  consisted  in  not 
troubling  oneself  about  what  one  can  not  know,  but  in  sus- 
pending judgment.  Pyrrho  himself  wrote  nothing  ;/but 
one  of  his  pupils,  Timon  of  Phlius,  was  a  writer  of  merit. 
He  was  born  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury b.  c,  and  lived  ninety  years.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  at  first  a  dancer,  then  to  have  studied  under 
Stilpo,  and  finally  to  have  adopted  the  views  of  Pyrrho. 
He  seems  to  have  traveled  about  in  various  cities,  giv- 
ing lectures  and  recitals.  His  writings,  both  in  prose 
and  verse,  were  numerous.     Of  his  prose  works  we  know 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD     367 

nothing.  His  poems  were  various,  but  one  of  the  most 
famous  was  called  SUM  or  Satii%es.  In  this  the  different 
philosophical  systems^  are „. cleverly  ridiculed.  The  scene 
appears  to  be  in  the  lower  world,  and  the  philosophers 
are  introduced  in  person.  About  one  hundred  and  forty 
lines  of  this  poem  are  preserved.  The  school  of  Pyrrho 
ceased  to  exist  independently  after  Timon,  but  his  doc- 
trine exerted  considerable  influence,  especially  upon  the 
Academy. 

The  "  Middle  "  and  "  New  "  Academy  are  influenced  by 
the  teachings  of  the  Stoics  and  of   Pyrrho.     Their  most 

important  members  are  Arcesilas  of  Pitane,  in 
and  New  iEolis  (about  315-241  b.  a),  who  was  scholarch 

Academy.  about  260,  and  Carneades  of  Cyrene  (about  215 
Arcesilas  and  _^^9  b.  c),  who  was  scholarch  about  a  century 

later.  The  other  Academicians  of  this  period 
may  be  passed  over.  In  doctrine  the  New  Academy  differed 
from  the  Middle  Academy  only  in  details,  but  both  differ 
from  the  Old  Academy  in  one  important  point./ Plato 
taught  that  absolute  knowledge  is  attainable ;  but  knowledge 
was  for  him  inseparable  from  the  theory  of  ideas. /His  sue* 
Qes££>xs  modified  and  virtually  discarded  the  theory  of  ideas, 
leaving  no  firm  foundation  for  the  theory  of  knowledge. 
Arcesilas,  in  combating  the  dogmatism  of  the  Stoics,  em- 
ployed arguments  derived  from  Pyrrho,  and  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  wise  man  must  renounce  absolute 
knowledge  and  be  contented  with  probability.  The  doc- 
trine of  probability  was  perfected  by  Carneades,  and  re- 
mained a  regular  part  of  the  Academic  teaching.  Arcesilas 
was  powerful  in  discussion  and  argument,  and  as  much 
loved  by  his  friends  as  he  was  hated  by  his  enemies.  Car- 
neades had,  besides  great  argumentative  ability,  unusual 
gifts  as  an  orator.  In  156  B.  c.  he  was  sent  by  the  Athenians 
as  ambassador  to  Rome  to  argue  a  case  before  the  Senate 
against  the  Sicyonians.  He  took  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  give  private  exhibitions,  and  shocked  the  Romans 


368  GREEK  LITERATURE 

by  proving  the  existence  of  justice  one  day  and  disprov- 
ing it  the  next.  Such  a  performance  shows  how  far  the 
Academy  had  departed  from  the  teachings  of  Plato.  It 
continued,  however,  to  exert  considerable  influence,  and 
appealed  especially  to  men  of  moderate  and  conservative 
tendencies.  Cicero  considered  himself  a  follower  of  the 
New  Academy. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

RHETORIC  AND  HISTORY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD 

Rhetoric— Hegesi as,  about  250  b.  c. — Hermagoras,  about  150  b.  c. — 
Apollodorus,  about  102  to  about  20  b.  c. — Theodorus  of  Gadara,  about 
33  b.  c— Memoirs— Ptolemy,  367-283  b.  c— Pyrrhus,  323  (?)-272  b.  a— 
Hannibal,  247-183  b.  c— Aratus  of  Sicyon,  271-213  b.  c— Collections 
of  material — Craterus,  321  to  about  265  b.  c. — Philochorus,  about  335- 
261  b.  c. — Demetrius  of  Skepsis,  born  about  210  b.  c. — Baeton  and 
Diognetus,  about  325  b.  c. — Amyntas,  about  325  b.  c. — Eumenes  and 
Diodotus,  about  320  b.  c. — Sosibius,  about  315  b.  c. — Istrus,  about 
260  b.  c. — Berosus,  about  280  b.  c. — Manetho,  about  250  b.  c. — Idom- 
eneus,  about  290  b.  c. — Dicaearchus,  early  third  century  b.  c. — His- 
tory— Histories  of  Alexander  (Aristobulus,  Chares  of  Mytilene,  One- 
sicritus,  Clitarchus,  Anaximenes,  Hegesias,  Callisthenes) — Hieronyraus 
of  Cardia,  about  365  to  about  260  b.  c. — General  history — Diyllus, 
about  300  b.  c. — Duris,  about  340  to  about  260  b.  c. — Demochares,  about 
350  to  after  289  b.  c. — Timoeus,  about  345  to  about  250  b.  c. — Geography 
— Nearchus,  about  320  b.  c. — Megasthenes,  about  300  b.  c. — Pytheas, 
300  b.  c. — Timosthenes,  about  300  b.  c. — Agatharchides,  about  165  b.  c. 
— Polemo  the  Periegete,  about  180  b.  c. — Eratosthenes,  276-195  b.  c. 
— Hipparchus,  about  150  b.  c. — Theophrastus,  about  372-287  b.  c. — 
Aristoxenus,  about  325  b.  c. — Heraclides  of  Pontus,  about  330  b.  c. — 
Antigonus  of  Carystus,  about  290  to  (?)  b.  c. — Sotion,  about  185  b.  c, 
— Grammar  and  philology  —  Zenodotus,  about  325-260  B.C.  —  Cal- 
limachus,  about  310  to  about  240  b.  c. — Aristophanes  of  Byzantium, 
about  262  to  about  185  b.  c. — Aristarchus,  about  215  to  about  143  b.  c. 
— Crates  of  M alius,  about  165  b.  c. — Mathematics  and  physics — Euclid es, 
about  300  b.  c. — Aristarchus  of  Samos,  about  280  b.  c. — Archimedes, 
287-212  b.c. — Apollonius  of  Perge,  about  200  b.  c. — Medicine,  etc. — 
Herophilus,  about  290  b.  c. — Erasistratus,  about  290  b.  c. — Romances — 
Hecatoeus,  about  300  b.  c. — Euhemerus,  about  300  b.  c. — Imitations — 
Jewish-Greek  writings — The  Septuagint — Aristobulus,  about  175  b.  c. 

During  the  Alexandrian  period,  which  was  being  for  the 
most  part  a  period  of  learned  research  and  imitation,  oratory 

369 


370  GREEK  LITERATURE 

did  not  flourish.  There  wore,  of  course,  many  speeches  de- 
livered, but  they  are  not  preserved,  nor  were  they,  in  all  prob- 
R,        .  ability,  worth  preserving.     Bhetoric  continued 

Hegesias.  -to  be  taught,  and  some  knowledge  of  rhetoric 
Hermagoras.    was  an  essential  of  a  liberal  education ;  it  was, 

Apoiiodorus.  however,  no  longer  of  especial  importance. 
Theodorus.         ___.  '     .  .  °         '  r         ,     ■    r 

The  only  rhetorician  ol  any  great  literary  con- 
sequence is  Hegggiaa-  of  Magnesia,  near  Mount  Sipylus, 
who  lived  about  the  middle  of  the  third  century  b.  c.  He 
wrote  orations  of  various  kinds,  a  history  of  Alexander, 
and  perhaps  other  historical  works.  He  is  important  as  the 
founder  of  the  "  Asian  "  school  of  rhetoric,  remarkable  for 
odd  arrangements  of  words,  striking  figures,  and  all  sorts 
of  ornamentation  in  composition,  by  which  the  lack  of 
ideas  was  to  be  covered  up.  This  school  exercised  great 
influence  upon  writers  of  the  latter  part  of  the  third  and 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  second  century.  Some  of  the 
later  teachers  belonging  to  it  are  Hermagoras  of  Temnos, 
Apoiiodorus  of  Pergamum,  and  Theodorus  of  Gadara,  who 
are  known  to  us  chiefly  through  Latin  writers,  but  whose 
influence  was  evidently  considerable. 

History  is  more  important  than  rhetoric  in  this  period, 
though  the  literary  value  of  the  works  produced  was  proba- 
bly slight.  No  historical  work  of  this  period  is  preserved 
entire,  and  few  fragments  remain  in  their  original  form. 
For  the  most  part,  the  historians  lacked  knowledge  of 
political  and  military  matters,  and  wrote  history  to  display 
their  rhetoric  or  their  learning.  A  few  generals  and  public 
men  wrote  memoirs  of  historical  importance,  in  which  they 
undoubtedly  displayed  an  intimate  knowledge  of  events. 
Their  works  seem,  however,  to  have  been  inferior  as  works 

of   literature.     The  most  important   of  these 

is  orica         wag  pfr0iemVt  gon  0f  Lagus,  who  became  King 

memoirs.  \* *— ** . s — i  ° 

of  Egypt  and  was  surnamed  Soter.     He  wrote 

a  History  of  Alexander.     Pyrrhus,  King  of  Epulis,  wrote 

Memoirs,  which  would  be  valuable  to  us  if  they  had  been 


HISTORY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD  371 

preserved ;  Aratus  of  Sicyon,  general  of  the  Achaean  League, 
also  wrote  Memoirs  in  thirty  books,  said  to  have  been  more 
valuable  for  their  truthfulness  than  for  their  style;   ano>\ 
Hannibal,  the  great  Carthaginian  general,  also  wrote  Greek    ) 
works  of  an  historical  nature,  probably  memoirs.  / 

Other  works  of  historical  character  were  many  and  vari- 
ous.    Some  were  mere  collections  of  material.     Aristotle 
had  encouraged  compilations  of  this  kind,  and  in  the  third 
and  second  centuries    they   were    very   numerous.     The 
Macedonian    Craterus,  son  of    one   of    Alex- 
o  eo  ions       ander's  generals,  made  a  Collection  of  the  de- 
crees  of  the   Athenian  People,   the   historian 
Philochorus  a  Collection  of  Attic  Inscriptions,  others  wrote 
on   games,  on  sacrifices,  on  festivals,  and  composed  notes 
and  made  collections  relating  to  all  sorts  of  special  top- 
ics.    At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century  Demetrius 
of  Skepsis  compiled  a  great  work  in  thirteen  books,  en- 
titled Catalogue  of  the  Trojans,  from  which  later  writers 
derived  much  information   about   the   antiquities   of  the 
Troad. 

Another  class  of  works,  consisting  of  .cjirjmjcles^  was 
very  numerous.     Baeton  and  Diognetus,  the  official  measur- 
ers in  Alexander's  army,  wrote  on  the  Marches 
Ch romc  es'       of  Alexander  ;  Amyntas  wrote  Marches  in  Asia ; 
Eumenes  and  Diodotus  edited  the  official  Jour- 
nals of  Alexander ;  Chronology  was  treated  by  Sosibius ;  and 
the  great  geographer  Eratosthenes  wrote  On  Chronography, 
a  criticism  of  the  chronological  writings  of  his  predeces- 
sors, with  theories  and  rules  for  the  guidance  of  others. 
Local  chronicles  were  numerous,  the  most  important  being 
the  Atthides  or  Chronicles  of  Attica.     The  most  celebrated 
writers  of  Atthides  were  Philochorus,  a  soothsayer  by  pro- 
fession, who  wrote  in  the  early  part  of  the  third 
century,  and  Istrus,  a  somewhat  later  writer, 
whose  Collection  of  Atthides  contained  the  statements  of  all 
his  predecessors  from  Hellanicus  down,  and  was  the  chief 


372  GREEK  LITERATURE 

source  from  which  later  writers  derived  their  information 
about  Attic  antiquities. 

Other  writers   narrated   the   history  of   foreign   lands. 
The  most  important  among  these  were  Berosus  ancHMane- 
tho.     Bexosjis^was  a  Babylonian,  but  wrote  his 
erosus  an       History  of  Babylonia  in  Greek.     He  was  a  priest 
of  Bel,  and  was  living  in   Alexander's   time. 
His  history  was,  however,  dedicated  to  Antiochus  Soter,  and 
was  probably  written  about  280  B.  c.     It  was  in  three  books, 
beginning  with  the  creation.     Berosus  was   evidently  ac- 
quainted with  the  ancient  records  of  the  Babylonians,  and 
the  fragments  of  his  writings  preserved  to  us  are  of  con- 
siderable value.     Manetho  was  an  Egyptian  priest  at  Heli- 
opolis,  who  wrote  a  History  of  Egypt  about  250  b.  c,  prob- 
ably at  the  command  of  Ptolemy  II.     The  work  is  lost,  but 
the  fragments  of  it  preserved  by  later  writers  are  the  foun- 
dation of  our  knowledge  of  ancient  Egyptian  chronology. 

Political   biography   is   represented  by  a  work  on    The 
Demagogues  of  Athens,  by  Idomeneus  of  Lampsacus,  a  pu- 
pil of  Epicurus,  written   probably  before  250 
Idomeneus.        fi  c      About  the  game  time  the  perjpatetic  phi_ 
Dicaearcnus.  .  , 

losopher  Dicaearchus,  who  was  especially  noted 

as  a  geographer,  attempted  to  give  a  general  view  of  Greek 
civilization  in  his  Life  of  Greece,  and  described  life  at  Sparta 
in  his  treatise  On  the  Spartan  Laws. 

History  properly  so  called,  the  connected  narrative  of 
great  events,  was  written  by  a  great  number  of  writers, 
whose  works  have  perished  and  of  whose  lives  and  charac- 
ters we  know  little  or  nothing.  Some  few  names  are  worth 
remembering,  because  the  works  of  this  period  were  used  by 
later  writers,  and  have  in  this  way  served  as  the  real  source 
of  our  knowledge  of  this  epoch. 

Alexander's  triumphal  march  to  India  opened  new  re- 
gions to  the  Greeks,  and  impressed  their  imagination  with 
the  wonderful  power  of  the  king  who  could  make  those  dis- 
tant lands  his  own.     The  history  of  Alexander  was  written 


HISTORY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD  373 

over  and  over  again  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  and 
the  whole  of  the  third  century.  Aristobulus,  who  had  been 
.  f  with  Alexander,  Chares  of  Mytilene,  Alexan- 
Aiexander  der's  chamberlain,  Onesicritus,  who  accompa- 
and  his  nied  the  expedition  and  was  chief  pilot  of  the 

successors.  ^ee^  0f  ]^earchus  on  its  voyage  from  the  Indus 
to  the  Euphrates,  Clitarchus,  Anaximenes  of  Lampsacus, 
Hegesias  of  Magnesia,  and  Callisthenes,  the  nephew  of  Aris- 
totle, whom  Alexander  caused  to  be  put  to  death,  are  only 
a  few  of  the  more  important  historians  of  Alexander.  Of 
their  works  but  few  fragments  remain,  not  enough  as  a  rule 
to  give  us  an  idea  of  their  personalities  or  literary  styles. 

After  Alexander,  the  "  Diadochi,"  or  successors  of  Alex- 
ander, and  Pyrrhus  of  Epirus,  were  popular  subjects  for  his- 
torians. The  best-known  writer  of  this  group  is  Hierony- 
mus  of  Cardia,  whose  History  of  the  Diadochi  began  with 
Alexander's  funeral  in  323  b.  c,  and  was  continued  in  his 
History  of  the  Epigoni  (including  Pyrrhus)  to  the  year  272. 
Other  historians,  such  as  Philinus  and  Sosylus,  told  the 
story  of  Italy  down  to  the  first  Punic  War. 

The  general  history  of  Greece,  including  that  of  Sicily, 

was  the  subject  of  numerous  works.     Diyllus  of  Athens 

continued  the  history  of  Ephorus  in  his  History 
General  .  , 

history.  °f  Greece  and  Sicily,  m  twenty-seven  books, 

Diyllus.  ending  with  the  death  of  Cassander  in  297  B.  c. 

Demochares.  Durjs  of  Samos,  a  pupil  of  Theophrastus  and 
in  his  later  life  tyrant  of  Samos,  wrote  a  gen- 
eral history  beginning  after  the  battle  of  Leuctra  and  con- 
tinuing at  least  to  281  b.  c.  He  also  wrote  a  history  of 
Samos,  a  life  of  Agathocles,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  and  trea- 
tises on  literary  and  other  subjects.  Demochares,  nephew 
of  Demosthenes,  wrote  a  history  of  Athens  in  his  own  times. 
Phylarchus,  in  the  second  half  of  the  third  century,  wrote  a 
history  in  twenty-eight  books,  continuing  the  work  of  Duris 
from  272  to  220  b.  c. 

But  the  most  important  historian  of  this  period,  until 


374  GREEK  LITERATURE 

we  come  to  Polybius  in  the  second  century,  was  Timaeus  of 
Tauromenium,  in  Sicily.  lie  Jived  from  about  345  to  about 
250  B.  c.  His  father,  Andromachus,  was  the 
founder  and  ruler  of  Tauromenium.  Timaeus 
was  driven  from  Tauromenium  by  Agathocles,  and  passed 
fifty  years  at  Athens,  after  which  he  spent  the  last  ten  years 
of  his  life  in  Sicily,  probably  at  Syracuse,  where  Hiero  II 
was  in  power.  His  chief  works  were  a  History  of  Sicily  and 
a  History  of  Pyrrhus.  The  first,  which  began  with  the 
earliest  times  and  ended  with  the  fall  of  Agathocles  in  289 
B.  c,  was  continued  by  the  second  to  the  year  272.  Timaeus 
was  a  man  of  immense  learning  and  wide  reading.  All  that 
his  predecessors  had  written  was  known  to  him,  and  he  also, 
made  use  of  inscriptions  and  other  official  records.  /He  was 
especially  careful  about  chronology,  and  was  the  first  to 
reduce  all  the  dates  of  Greek  history  to  one  system,  that  of 
Olympiads,  which  was  adopted  by  all  his  successors.  He  was, 
however,  unacquainted  with  public  affairs,  nor  did  he  travel 
to  make  himself  familiar  with  historic  sites,  but  derived 
his  information  entirely  from  written  sources.  His  views 
were  therefore  sometimes  incorrect..  He  seems  to  have 
known  no  moderation  in  praise  or  blame  of  the  characters 
of  whom  he  wrote,  but  he  exalted  some  beyond  measure  and 
blamed  others  so  severely  as  to  draw  down  upon  himself 
the  censure  of  Polybius  and  others.  This  was  in  great 
measure  due  to  his  lqve_of  rhetoric,  for  he  wrote  in  the 
"Asian  "  style,  after  the  manner  of  Hegesias,  and  exagger- 
ated praise  and  blame  gave  a  good  opportunity  for  exagger- 
ated rhetorical  ornament.  His  literary  taste  was  evidently 
bad,  and  the  fact  that  he  was  much  admired  shows  how  low 
the  taste  of  the  time  had  fallen.  Nevertheless,  his  works 
contained  a  vast  amount  of  information,  some  of  which  has 
come  down  to  us  through  Diodorus  and  others/ 

/ GeojrrapJiy,  as  well  as  history,  received  a  new  impulse 
from  the  eYperJitioTi  of  Alexander  and  the  extension  of 
Greek  commerce*    New  regions  were  described,  and  the 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD   375 

descriptions  included  accounts  of  the  inhabitants,  their 

manners,  customs,  legends,  and  even  past  history.     At  the 

same  time  regions  already  known  were  more 

G602T&T)llV> 

carefully  described  than  before.  The  progress 
of  science  led  also  to  truer  notions  about  the  earth  as  a 
whole,  to  the  determination  of  latitudes,  and  in  general  to 
what  may  be  called  the  mathematical  part  of  geography./ 
Among  writers  of  the  geography  of  distant  lands  are  Near- 
chus,  an  admiral  of  Alexander  who  described  in  his  Periplus 
his  voyage  down  the  Indus  and  along  the  coast  of  the  In- 
dian Ocean  to  the  mouth  of  the  Euphrates ;  Megasthenes, 
who  was  sent  several  times  to  India  by  Seleucus  Mcator 
and  published  the  results  of  his  observation  in  a  work  called 
Indica;  and  Pytheas  of  Marseilles,  who  sailed  along  the 
Atlantic  coast  from  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  British 
Islands,  and  wrote  a  book  entitled  On  the  Ocean.  Others 
described  more  accurately  regions  already  known.  Timos- 
thenes,  an  admiral  of  Ptolemy  II  (Philadelphus),  wrote  of 
the  harbors  of  the  Mediterranean,  Dicaearchus  published 
Measurements  of  the  Mountains  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  in 
the  first  half  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  Agatharchides  of 
Cnidus  compiled  a  great  work  in  fifty-nine  books  On  Europe 
and  Asia.  Nothing  more  than  fragments  remains  of  any 
of  these  works. 

A  special  class,  hardly  to  be  called  geographers,  are  the 
Periegetm,  or^guides,  who  described  and  explained  for  trav- 
elers the  objects  of  interest  in  important  cities.     The  most 

distinguished  of  these  was  Polemo  of  Ilium, 
Periegetae.         who   traveled  about    in    the  firgt  h  lf     f   th 
Polemo.  . 

third  century  and  wrote  numerous  books,  many, 
though  not  all,  of  which  were  guide-books.  The  most  im- 
portant perhaps  were  his  book  On  the  Acropolis  at  Athens, 
one  On  the  Sacred  Road  from  Athens  to  Eleusis,  and  one 
On  the  Treasures  at  Delphi.  Later  writers,  like  Plutarch 
and  Pausanias,  made  use  of  his  works,  which  are  now  lost. 
One  of  the  most  learned  men  of  the  third  century  was 
25 


376  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Eratosthenes  of  Cyrene.  lie  was  born  about  275  b.  c, 
studied  in  Cyrene,  then  under  Callimachus  at  Alexandria, 

then  at  Athens  under  Ariston  and  Arcesilas. 

About  235  he  was  called  to  Alexandria  by 
Ptolemy  III  (Euergetes),  where  he  became  head  of  the 
Alexandrian  Library  at  the  death  of  Callimachus.  He  died 
about  195  b.  c.  Alis  most  important  work  was  his  Geogra- 
phy, in  three  books.  He  first  reviewed  the  commonly  ac- 
cepted theories  and  showed  that  they  were  false,  declaring 
among  other  things  that  facts  concerning  geography  were 
not  to  be  sought  in  the  Homeric  poems.  In  the  second 
book  he  promulgated  his  own  views,  showed  that  the 
earth  is  spherical,  studied  latitudes  and  longitudes,  tried 
to  determine  the  circumference  of  the  earth,  which  he 
thought  was  250,000  stadia  (about  31,250  miles),  and  dis- 
cussed the  relative  positions  of  different  countries  and  the 
reports  of  explorers.  In  the  third  book  he  gave  a  sketch 
of  the  political  geography  of  his  time.  The  whole  work 
was  accompanied  by  a, map,  and  was  undoubtedly  the  first 
scientific  geography./  Eratosthenes  made  mistakes,  some 
of  which  were  corrected  by  Hipparchus  of  Nicaea  in  the 
second  century  b.  c,  but  his  work  was  as  a  whole  the  great- 
est work  on  geography  before  modern  times.  He  also  wrote 
many  other  works.  His  Chronography  has  already  been 
mentioned  (page  371),  and  his  other  writings  showed  his 
ability  as  philosopher,  grammarian,  philologist^  and  even 
poet.  He  was  without  doubt  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
learned  men  of  his  age. 

The  history  of  philosophyT  literatureT  and  art  occupied 
a  considerable  number  of  writers.  Aristotle  had  made  it 
„.  his  practise  in  treating  of  any  subject  to  begin 

philosophy,  by  mentioning  the  works  of  his  predecessors, 
literature,  His  pupil  Theophrastus  wrote  books  on  the 
and  art.  Opinions  of  the  Philosophers.     Biographies  of 

Poets_3Tere  written  .  by  Aristoxenus  of  Tarentum,  a  pupil 
of  Theophrastus,  who  also  composed  various  other  works, 


PHILOLOGY   IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD      377 

including  the  Elements  of  Harmony,  three  books  of  which 
remain  to  us,  and  the  Elements  of  Rhythm,  of  which  we  have 
some  fragments.  Heraclides  of  Pontus,  a  pupil  of  Plato  and 
afterward  of  Aristotle,  wrote  on  morals,  physics,  grammar, 
music,  rhetoric,  anr|  history.  Among  these  works  were 
some  on  the  history  of  philosophy  and  literature.  Chame- 
leon of  Pontus,  a  contemporary  of  Heraclides,  published 
many  books  on  classical  writers  and  their  works.  Antigo- 
nus  of  Oarystus,  who  was  born  about  290  B.  c,  was  called 
to  Pergamum  by  King  Attalus  I  (241-197 
Antigonus  of  R  aj  jje  wrote?  am0ng  other  things,  biogra- 
phies of  contemporary  philosophers  and  a  his- 
torical work  on  sculpture  and  painting.  These  important 
works  are  lost,  and  the  only  book  preserved  to  us  under  his 
name  is  a  rather  ill-composed  collection  of  mythological 
tales  and  strange  natural  phenomena.  Sotion  of  Alexandria 
composed  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  cen- 
Sotion.  j.ury  B  c  a  work  jn  thirteen  books  on  the  Suc- 

cession of  Philosophers,  or  the  history  of  the  philosophical 
schools  and  doctrines,  from  which  we  derive  much  infor- 
mation through  Diogenes  of  Laerte. 

Grammar  and  philology  naturally  interested  the  learned 

men  of  this  period,  who  not  only  had  great  libraries  at 

hand,  but  were  obliged,  as  librarians,  to  care 

Grammar  an  ^  ^  publication  0f  correct  texts  and  service- 
philology.  r 

able    commentaries.      The    number  of  these 

writers  is  so  great  that  only  a  few  of  the  greater  names  can 
be  mentioned.     Zpnodotus  of  Ephesus  (about 
325-260  B.  C.)  became  the  first  librarian-in-chief 
of  the  Alexandrian  Library  about  285.     His  edition  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  was  the  first  critical  edition  founded  upon 
methodical  study  and  comparison  of  the  different  manu- 
scripts-   Callimachus  of  Cyrene,  who  succeeded 
Zenodotus  as  librarian,  is  famous  as  a  poet,  but 
was  also  the  author  of  many  learned  works,  among  them 
Tables  of  those  who  Excelled  in  each  Branch  of  Learning 


378  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  of  their  Works,  a  vast  work  in  one  hundred  and  twenty 
books,  in  which  the  volumes  in  the  library  were  catalogued 
and  classified,  and  the  life  of  each  author  was  given,  with  a 
critical  commentary  on  his  works.  Eratosthenes  wrote  On 
the  Old  Comedy.  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium 
Aristophanes  /ab(mt  262-185  B.  c.)  a  pupil  of  Callimachus,  be- 
of Byzantium.    v  ,.-..,        .      >  ,   n  -,   •       ,  ,i  * 

came  chief  librarian  at.  Aift-s-fl/nrina,  at  the  age  01 
sixty-two.  He  completed  the  Tables  of  Callimachus,  wrote 
on  grammar  an^iteratuxe,  on  the  precise  meanings  of  words, 
nn  prnyp.rhR.  and  other  kindred  subjects,  and  edited,  with  in- 
troductions and  notes,  a  great  number  of  authors,  including 
Homer,  Hesiod,  the  chief  lyric,  comic,  and  tragic  poets,  and 
Plato.     He  was  a  man  of  great  learning  and  real  ability. 

Aristarchus  of  Samothrace  (about  215-143)  was  a  pupil 
of  Aristophanes,  and  his  successor  as  librarian.  He  is 
known  chiefly  for  his  editions  of  Homer,  Hesiod, 
Alcseus,  Pindar,  and  several  tragedies  of  iEs- 
chylus.  He  also  wrote  a  great  number  of  commentaries  on 
classical  works.  Of  all  the  Alexandrian  critics  he  is  the 
best  known.  The  scholia  in  the  existing  manuscripts  of 
ancient  authors  are  often  derived  from  the  learned  notes  of 

Aristarchus.  Crates  of  Mallus,  in  Cilicia,  was 
Crates. 

a  contemporary  of  Aristarchus.     He  was  called 

to  Pergamum  by  Attalus  II,  and  became  the  most  impor- 
tant representative  of  the  Pergamene  school  of  learning. 
He  catalogued  the  books  of  the  Pergamene  Library,  and 
published  editions  of  Homer,  Hesiod,  and  other  poets. 
Aristarchus  and  Aristophanes  explained  many  grammatical 
forms  by  analogy,  or  likeness,  but  Crates  preferred  to  lay 
stress  on  anomaly,  or  contrast.  He  was  also  a  Stoic  philoso- 
pher, and  seems  to  have  been  interested  in  mathematics 
and  astronomy. 

Mathematics  and  natural  science  made  great  progress 
in  the  Alexandrian  period.  I^icJiiL-tEuclides),  who  lived 
at  Alexandria  under  Ptolemy  I,  about  300  B.  c,  was  a  dis- 
tinguished mathematician,  whose  Elements  of  Geometry,  in 


ROMANCES  IN  THE  ALEXANDRIAN   PERIOD        379 

thirteen  books,  is  the  original  of  all  subsequent  text-books 

of  geometry.     Aristarchus  of  Samos  (about  280  B.C.),  was 

the  first  to  declare  that  the  earth  moves  round 

Mathematics    ^e  Archimedes  of   Syracuse   (287-212 

and  physics.      *~ -*-""■      . _  i  \ 

B.C.)  was  famous  as  an  engineer,  and  by  his 

inventions  delayed  the  capture  of  the  city  by  the  Romans. 
When  at  last  the  city  fell  he  lost  his  life.  Several  of  his 
works  on  mathematics  are  preserved,  and  one  on  hydro- 
statics {On  Floating  Bodies)  exists  in  a  Latin  translation. 
Apollonius  of  Perge,  in  Pamphylia,  who  lived  at  Alexandria 
and  Pergamum  about  200  b.  c,  was  famous  as  a  mathema- 
tician and  astronomer,  and  other  less  important  scientists 
were  numerous. 

In  the  third  century  two  physicians,  Herophilus  of 
Chalcedon,  and  Erasistratus  of  Elis,  established  schools  of 
Medicine.  medicine.  The  followers  of  Herophilus  re- 
Other  tech-  mained  true  to  the  doctrines  of  Hippocrates, 
nical  works.  while  Erasistratus  and  his  followers  were  inno- 
vators. Other  physicians  belonged  to  neither  of  these 
schools.  They  all  seem  to.  have  pursued  the  study  of 
anatomy  zealously.  Numerous  works  on  various  subjects 
of  little  literary  interest,  and  often  of  no  scientific  value, 
swell  the  total  of  the  technical  literature  of  this  period. 
Such  are  books  on  hunting,  on  stones,  on  farming,  and 
the  like. 

Some  of  the  historians  of  Alexander  allowed  their  imag- 
ination free  play  in  the  description  of  far-off  lands  and 
Romances  strange  peoples  and  events.  Other  writers 
Hecataeus  of  of  this  epoch  went  still  further,  and  composed 
Abdera.  romances  with  little   or  no  historical  truth. 

Euhemerus.       Hecata)us  of   Teog?  Qr   Abdera?   who    lived    at 

Alexandria  about  300  B.C.,  wrote  two  romances  under 
the  guise  of  history,  entitled  On  the  Hyperboreans  and  On 
Egypt,  in  which  he  expressed  his  philosophic,  religious, 
and  moral  fancies.  Unfortunately,  Diodorus  regarded  the 
book  on  Egypt  as  historical,  and  used  it  as  a  source  for 


380  GREEK  LITERATURE 

information  about  the  country.  Euhemerus,  of  Messana,  in 
Sicily,  a  contemporary  of  Hecatseus,  wrote  a  book  entitled 
The  Sacred  Inscription.  He  pretended  to  have  read  on  an 
altar  at  Panara,  the  capital  of  Panchaia,  an  inscription 
recording  the  deeds  of  Uranus,  Cronus,  and  Zeus,  from 
which  it  was  clear  that  they  had  once  been  men.  He  went 
on  to  develop  his  theory  that  all  gods  were  once  kings  or 
great  men.  The  book  was  full  of  all  sorts  of  fantastic 
details,  most  of  which  were  by  no  means  necessary  for  the 
support  of  the  theory.  There  were  undoubtedly,  even  at 
this  early  time,  romances  composed  merely  to  amuse  the 
reader,  but  they  have  disappeared  entirely. 

To  this  period  belong  many  of  the  works  falsely  ascribed 
to  earlier  writers,  such  as  Orpheus,  Hecatseus  of  Miletus, 
Phocylides,  and  the  sibyls.  Some  of  these  show  signs  of 
Imitations.  Jewish  influence,  and  it  is  certain  that  Alex- 
Jewish-Greek  andria  had  a  large  Jewish  population  which 
writings.  spoke  and  wrote  Greek.  This  is  the  time  when 
the  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Septuagint,  was 
writtem  In  the  first  part  of  the  second  century  a  certain 
Aristobulus,  living  at  Alexandria,  wrote  an  Explanation  of 
the  Law  of  Moses,  to  prove  to  the  pagans  that  their  philos- 
ophy was  of  Hebrew  origin. 


CHAPTER   XXXV 

ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY 

Elegiac  poetry — Philetas,  about  340  to  about  285  b.  c. — His  follow- 
ers (Hermesianax,  about  285  b.  c,  Phanocles,  about  300  b.  c,  Alex- 
ander of  JEtolia,  about  275  b.  c.)— Eratosthenes,  born  276  b.  c. — Par- 
thenius,  about  75  b.  c. — Various  lyrics — Asclepiades,  about  300  b.  c. 
— Simmias,  about  280  b.  c. — Posidippus,  about  260  b.  c. — Hedylus, 
about  260  b.  c. — Anyte,  about  260  b.  c. — Leonidas  of  Tarentum,  about 
285  b.  c. — The  Anthology — Antipater  of  Sidon,  about  120  b.  c. — 
Dioscorides,  about  230  b.  c. — Alcaeus  of  Messene,  about  210  b.  c. — 
Meleager,  about  90  or  80  b.  c. — Farces — Sotades,  about  280  b.  c. — 
Rhinthon,  about  300  b.  c. — Herodas,  about  275  b.  c. — Theocritus,  about 
300  to  about  245  b.  c. — His  idylls — His  style — Bion,  about  260  b.  c. — 
Moschus,  about  175  b.  c. — Callimachus,  about  310  to  about  240  b.  c. — 
Aratus  of  Soli,  about  315  to  about  240  b.  c. — Nicander,  about  160  b.  c. — 
Apollonius  of  Rhodes,  about  295  to  about  215  b.  c. — Euphorion,  276- 
187  b.  c. — Rhianus,  about  240  b.  c. — Lycophron,  about  290  b.  c. — Isyllus, 
about  280  b.  c. — Delphic  paeans,  about  100  b.  c. 

The  somewhat  dry  enumeration  of  prose  writers  in  the 
last  chapter  was  necessary  to  give  an  idea  of  the  great  num- 
ber of  learned  works  produced  in  the  Alexandrian  period. 
Among  the  authors  already  mentioned  some  wrote  poetry 
as  well  as  prose,  and  even  among  those  poets  who  were  not 
also  prose  writers  there  was  often  as  much  learning  as  gen- 
uine poetic  inspiration.  Their  poetry  was  written  to  be 
read,  and  to  be  read  by  the  same  educated 
Aiexan  nan  pU^jc  ^0  which  the  prose  literature  was  ad- 
dressed. The  New  Comedy  was  written  for  the 
stage,  but  the  comic  poets  were  almost  confined  to  Athens ; 
other  forms  of  poetry  were  now  seldom  employed  in  public 

381 


382  GREEK  LITERATURE 

festivals.  A  natural  result  was  that  the  elaborate  odes  and 
dithyrambs,  like  those  of  Pindar  or  Bacchylides,  which  de- 
pended for  their  effect  in  great  measure  upon  music  and 
dancing,  were  no  longer  cultivated,  but  poetry  was  confined 
chiefly  to  elegies,  short  epics,  epigrams,  idylls,  and  mmies. 
Nor  did  the  individual  poets  now  confine  their  production 
to  one  or  two  kinds  of  poetry.  The  metres  employed  were 
generally  simple,  and  each  poet  could  write  indifferently  in 
all  the  different  classes  of  poetry.  Nevertheless,  each  poet 
owes  his  reputation  as  a  rule  to  one  kind  of  poetry,  and  a 
classification  by  the  kind  of  composition  will  therefore  be 
advisable,  even  though  it  may  lead  to  some  confusion  of 
chronology. 

Elegiac  poetry,  which  had  in  earlier  times  been  employed 
for  the  expression  of  martial  and  patriotic  sentiments,  was 
in  Alexandrian  times  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  love; 
indeed,  love  poems  of  various  kinds  were  much  in  vogue. 
Elegiac  The  earliest  poet  of  amorous  elegiacs  was  Phile- 

m>etry.  tas  of  Cos.     He  was  born  about  340  b.  c,  and 

Phiietas.  was  called  to  Alexandria  by  Ptolemy  I  (Soter) 

to  be  the  tutor  of  his  son.  After  some  years  at  Alexandria 
he  returned  to  Cos.  He  wrote  several  learned  treatises,  for 
he  was  a  grammarian  as  well  as  a  poet ;  love  poems  in  ele- 
giac verse  addressed  to  his  mistress  Bittis ;  two  collections 
of  short  poems,  probably  in  great  part  epigrams ;  and  two 
longer  poems,  one  in  elegiac  verse  entitled  Demeter,  and  one 
in  hexameters,  entitled  Hermes.  He  owed  his  great  fame 
for  the  most  part  to  his  amorous  elegies,  in  which  he  em- 
bodied much  mythological  lore  along  with  his 
anax  expressions  of   sentiment.     Very  little  of  his 

Phanocies.  poems  remains.  He  seems  to  have  expressed 
Alexander.  delicate  sentiment  in  exquisitely  finished  verse, 
ratost  enes.  Theocritus  speaks  of  him  with  admiration,  and 
the  Eoman  Propertius  regards  him  as  a  great 
master  of  elegiac  poetry.  His  chief  pupils  and  imitators 
were  Hermesianax  of  Colophon,  Phanocies,  and  Alexander 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  383 

of  ^Etolia.  Somewhat  later -Eratosthenes  wrote  a  mytho- 
logical elegiac  poem,  Erigone,  and  in  the  early  part  of  the 
first  century  B.  c.  Parthenius  of  Nicaea  wrote  mythological 
elegies.  These  are  lost,  but  a  prose  work  by  Parthenius, 
The  Sufferings  of  Love,  is  preserved — a  series  of  legendary 
love  stories,  usually  ending  with  the  death  or  metamorpho- 
sis of  the  chief  characters. 

The  religious  poetry  of  this  period  had  been  almost 
ftTvtJrp.]y  lost,  thoiTgh  several  poets  to  whom  hymns  were 
Hymns,  ascribed  were  known  by  name,  until  some  po- 

paeans,  etc  ems  engraved  on  stone  were  found  in  the  later 
isylius.  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.     The  first  of 

these,  found  at  Epidaurus,  is  by  Isylius,  who  flourished 
about  280  B.  c.  His  poem  consists  in  part  of  trochaic 
•  tetrameters,  in  part  of  dactylic  hexameters,  and  contains 
also  a  paean  to  Apollo  and  Asclepius  in  more  complicated 
Ionic  metre,  in  which  the  story  of  the  birth  of  Asclepius  is 
narrated.  The  simpler  parts  of  the  poem  tell  how  the  poet 
caused  a  procession  to  be  conducted  and  prayers  offered  to 
Apollo  and  Asclepius.  The  poem  has  little  literary  merit, 
but  is  interesting  as  a  specimen  of  the  art  of  an  otherwise 
unknown  Epidaurian  poet  and  also  because  it  contains  a 
complete  paean,  a  kind  of  poem  otherwise  little  known. 
Two  othftr  jHfjfl.-pa,  one  of  which  is  nearly  complete  and  both 
of  which  have  the  musical  notation  written  above  the 
words,  were  found  at  Delphi.  They  celebrate  the  deeds  of 
Apollo.     Both  were  written  not  far  from  100 

Delphic  R  a     The  author  of  the  less  complete  of  the 

paeans.  v  r 

two  is  named  Aristonous.    xhese  poems  show 

that  there  must  have  been  a  considerable  number  of  hymns 
in  honor  of  the  gods  composed  in  the  Alexandrian  period, 
but  they  give  us  no  very  high  conception  of  their  literary 
quality/ 

Asclepiades  of  Samos,  a  contemporary  of  Philetas,  wrote 
poems  of  various  kinds,  especially  lyrics,  which  were  prob- 
ably love-songs  in  imitation  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho.     The 


384  GREEK  LITERATURE 

greater  and  lesser  Asclepiadean  stanzas,  which  Horace  used, 
derived  their  name  from  him,  though  he  did  not  invent, 
but  merely  perfected  them.     He  was  especially 
eT Tarns6*5      note(i  f°r  nis  epigrams,  and  the  eighteen  speci- 
mens preserved  under  his  name  in  the  Pala- 
tine Anthology  show  that  he  deserved  his  reputation.     Less 
distinguished  epigrammatists  are  Simmias,  Posidippus,  and 
Hedylus,  several   of  whose  epigrams  are  pre- 
Posidippus.      served  in  the  Anthology.     Several  women  also 
Hedylus.  wrote  epigrams,  among  whom  Anyte  of  Tegea, 

Anyte.  {n  Arcadia,  may  be  mentioned.     Lejmidas__of 

TarejxtiLQi,  younger  than  Philetas,  but  still  be- 
longing to  the  first  half  of  the  third  century  b.  c,  was  a  wan- 
dering beggar,  whom  the  Muses  loved  and  who  consoled  him- 
self by  writing  epigrams  and  dreaming  of  his  future  fame. 
About  one  hundred  of  his  epigrams  are  preserved.  ^They 
belong  to  all  classes  :  epitaphs,  inscriptions  on  statues,  sacred 
offerings,  and  portraits  of  poets  or  artists,  as  well  as  expres- 
sions of  philosophical  and  moral  sentiments.  J 

Epigrams  were  popular  among  the  poets  throughout 
the  Alexandrian  period,  and  even  later.     Some  forty  poets 
of  epigrams  are  known  by  name  and  by  spe- 
th  \  n"  cimens  of  their  poems.     They  have  as  a  rule  a 

pretty  talent  for  versification,  but  lack  origi- 
nality. The  best  known  among  them  are  Dioscorides, 
Alcaeus  of  Messene,  Antipater  of  Sidon,  and  above  all  Me- 
leager  of  Gadara  in  Syria.  Meleager  flourished 
in  the  early  part  of  the  first  century  b.  c.  and 
became  a  Cynic  like  his  fellow  citizen  Menippus  (see  page 
362),  whom  he  imitated  in  some  satiric  writings.  He  was 
also  the  author  of  a  work  on  the  Opinions  of  Philosophers ; 
but  his  reputation  rests  upon  his  epigrams,  which,  though 
not  always  in  perfectly  good  taste,  are  frequently  charming 
in  their  delicacy  and  simplicity.  An  example  of  his  senti- 
ment is  the  following  : 1 

1  Anthologia  Palatina,  xii,  53.    Translated  by  Andrew  Lang. 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  385 

O  gentle  ships  that  skim  the  seas, 
And  cleave  the  strait  where  Helle  fell, 

Catch  in  your  sails  the  northern  breeze, 
And  speed  to  Cos  where  she  doth  dwell, 
My  love,  and  see  you  greet  her  well ! 
And  if  she  looks  across  the  blue, 
Speak,  gentle  ships,  and  tell  her  true — 
"  He  comes,  for  love  hath  brought  him  back, 
No  sailor,  on  the  landward  tack." 

If  thus,  O  gentle  ships,  ye  do, 

Then  may  ye  win  the  fairest  gales, 
And  swifter  speed  across  the  blue, 

While  Zeus  breathes  friendly  on  your  sails. 

Meleager  collected  and  published,  along  with  his  own 
epigrams,  a  selection  of  short  poems  by  about  forty  Greek 
poets,  from  the  seventh  century  to  his  own  time.  This 
collection,  which  he  called  the  Garland,  was  very  popular, 
and  the  example  set  by  Meleager  was  followed  by  later  col- 
lectors. It  is  thus  due  to  him  that  many  short  poems  have 
escaped  destruction,  being  preserved  in  anthologies,  the 
best  known  and  most  important  of  which  is  the  Anthologia 
Palatina. 

/The  elegies  and  epigrams  were  delicate,  exquisitely  fin- 
ished, sentimental  verses.  Alongside  of  these  other  poems 
were  composed  characterized  by  accurate  observation  of. 
life,  satirical  wit  and  humor,  and  often  gross  indecency. 
They  were  evidently  literary  imitations  of  the  rude  farces 
and  mocking  verses  of  the  people./  Sotades 
Rhinthon  °^  Maronea,  in  Crete,  lived  under  the  first 
Ptolemies  and  wrote  satires  full  of  personalities 
and  indecency.  In  one  of  these  he  attacked  Ptolemy  II 
(Philadelphus),  who  caused  him  to  be  sewed  in  a  sack  and 
drowned.  About  the  same  time  Rhinthon  of  Tarentum 
imitated  in  writing  the  popular  farces  of  the  Greeks  of 
lower  Italy.  Of  the  works  of  Sotades  and  Rhinthon  little 
remains,  but  a  papyrus  manuscript  discovered  in  Egypt 


386  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  first  published  in  1891  shows  how  the  mime,  which 
had  been  popular  in  Syracuse  in  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  (see 
page  249,  Sophron),  was  revived  by  Herodas  (or  Herondas). 
This  writer,  whose  birthplace  is  unknown, 
probably  flourished  in  the  first  part  of  the 
third  century.  Of  his  mimes  seven  and  fragments  of  an 
eighth  are  extant,  written  in  choliambic  verse  and  Ionic 
dialect.  From  these  we  learn  what  a  Greek  mime  was — a 
satiric  dialogue,  portraying  contemporary  customs  and  foi- 
bles. One  of  them  depicts  a  visit  of  some  ladies  to  a  shoe- 
shop.     It  begins : 

"  Cerdo,  I'm  bringing  these  friends  of  mine  to  you  to  see  if  you 
have  any  good  work  worthy  of  your  skill  to  show."  "Not  in  vain, 
Metro,  thank  you.  Won't  you  bring  out  a  table  for  these  ladies, 
Drimylus  ?  Oh,  I  say,  are  you  asleep  again  ?  Pistus,  hit  him  over 
the  snout  till  he  gets  all  the  sleep  knocked  out  of  him." 

The  ladies  presently  sit  down,  the  shoemaker  shows  his 
wares,  and  they  chaffer  with  each  other  until  finally  a  sale 
is  made  and  the  ladies  go  away  amid  the  thanks  of  the 
shoemaker,  whom  we  can  almost  see  bowing  them  politely 
from  his  door.  The  other  mimes  are  equally  lively  pre- 
sentations of  talks  between  friends  or  acquaintances,  for  the 
most  part  women.  They  are  occasionally  rather  indecent, 
but  are  unjfirnahly  d\ fiver,  showing  accurate  observation 
and  a  keen  sense  of  humor. 

A  fragment  of  papyrus  found  in  Egypt  and  first  pub- 
lished in  1896 1  contains  part  of  what  may  have  been  a 
mime.     Only  about  thirty  lines  are  well  pre- 

The  Grenfell     gerved  written  in  verse  similar  to  that  of  the 
papyrus.  7 

choral  parts  in  tragedies,  especially  those  of 

Euripides.     A  woman  deserted  by  her  lover  is  speaking, 

and  her  words  disclose  real  passion  and  tenderness,  as  well 

as  jealousy  of  her  rival.     Apparently  the  words  were  to  be 

Grenfell,  An  Alexandrian  Erotic  Fragment  and  other  Greek 
Papyri  chiefly  Ptolemaic,  Oxford,  1896. 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  387 

accompanied  by  some  action,  as  the  woman  seems  to  come 
to  the  house  where  her  faithless  lover  is  feasting  and  speak 
to  him  in  the  last  lines.  The  date  of  the  composition  is 
probably  the  third  or  early  second  century  b.  c.  The  name 
of  the  author  is  unknown,  but  he  was  evidently  a  writer  of 
more  than  ordinary  literary  skill  and  delicacy  of  feeling, 
who  employed  the  language  of  common  life,  and  treated  his 
subject  with  great  realism. 

The  delicacy,  sentiment,  and  finished  workmanship  of 
elegies  and  epigrams  are  joined  with  the  realism  of  the 
satiric  verses  and  mimes  in  the  works  of  The- 
ocritus,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Alexandrian 
period.     We  have,  besides   some   epigrams,  thirty  poems 
under  his  name,  five  of  which  are  spurious,  which  are  called 
"  idylls."     The  Greek  word  from  which  "  idyll "  is  derived 
means  simply  "  little  picture,"  or  "  small  descriptive  poem," 
but  is  applied  especially  to  pastoral  poems  because  of  the 
importance  of  such  poems  among  the  idylls  of  Theocritus. 
His  idylls  are,  however,  by  no  means  all  pas- 
toral, nor  are  they  all  alike  in  composition. 
There  are  among  them  ljoy^-songSj  mimes  almost  in  the 
manner  of  Herodas,  pastoral  poems  partly  in  dialogue,  like 
mimes,  but  including  songs  as  well,  and  short   epics  on 
mythological  subjects.     The   poems   are   written   for  the 
most  part  in  hexameters  and  elegiacs  and  in  the  Doric  dia- 
lect of  Sicily;  but  Theocritus  sometimes  uses  the  Ionic 
dialect  when  the  style  of  the  poem  demands  it. 

Of  the  life  of  Theocritus  little  is  known.  He  was  born, 
probably  at  Syracuse,  a  little  before  300  B.C.  His  parents 
were  Praxagoras  and  Philinna.  It  was  prob- 
Theocritus  a^^  while  he  was  still  a  young  man  that  he 
spent  some  time  at  Cos,  where  he  came  under 
the  influence  of  Philetas  and  knew  Asclepiades  of  Samos, 
Aratus,  and  the  physician  Nicias  of  Miletus.  He  was  also 
for  a  time  at  the  court  of  Ptolemy  II  (Philadelphus)  at  Alex- 
andria ;  but  whether  he  remained  there  until  his  death  or 


388  GREEK  LITERATURE 

returned  to  Sicily  is  unknown,  though  it  is  not  improbable 
that  he  was  attracted  to  the  court  of  Hiero  II  at  his  native 
Syracuse.  His  poetry  certainly  breathes  for  the  most  part 
the  fresh,  clear  air  of  the  Sicilian  hillsides,  not  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  Alexandrian  court. .  The  date  of  his  death  is 
uncertain — perhaps  about  245  B.  c. 

/Oi  all  the  Alexandrian  poets  Theocritus  is  the  most 
original.     While  others  imitated  the  works  of  earlier  times 
or  portrayed  with  realistic  accuracy  the  man- 
as  ora  nerg  an(^  customs  of  those  about  them,  The- 
ldylls.  *  7 

ocritus  appealed  to  nature  for  his  inspiration^ 

In  reading  his  pastorals  we  seem  to  feel  the  soft  Sicilian 
breeze  and  the  warm  Sicilian  sun,  to  see  about  us  the  ver- 
dure-clad hills,  and  to  take  part  in  the  happy  life  of  the 
rustic  shepherds.  The  love  of  nature  is  evident  in  Greek 
literature  from  the  beginning  to  the  end;  but  nowhere 
does  it  appear  so  clearly  as  in  Theocritus,  and  nowhere  is 
it  more  delightful.  Whatever  interest  attaches  to  his  other 
idylls,  the  pastoral  poems  are  his  greatest  works.  In  these 
he  is  still  unsurpassed,  though  Virgil  and  a  host  of  lesser 
imitators  have  tried  to  rival  him. 

The  style  of  Theocritus  defies  translation  and  baffles 

description.     It  is  polished  with  all  the  fineness  of  Alexan- 

drian  culture,   and  at  the  same  time  simple 

2?  e  °.*  and  unaffected ;  it  is  highly  artificial,  as  the 

Theocritus.  ,  -  — n      J     A. — Y1tVm 

style   of  a  court  poet   who   writes   of  rustic 

shepherds  can  not  fail  to  be,  yet  full  of  natural  grace  and 
fiha.rm.  Mythological  allusions  abound  in  Theocritus ;  but 
they  do  not  seem  to  be  there  to  show  the  poet's  learning, 
but  rather  because  the  Greek  mind  turns  to  mythology  as 
the  natural  form  for  its  poetic  fancies.  With  all  the  learn- 
ing which  he  evidently  possesses,  Theocritus  is  still  able  to 
retain  his  personality  and  natural  qualities.  He  has,  too, 
great  dramatic  ability,  and  presents  the  persons  of  his 
dialogues  with  the  most  perfect  reajism,  The  Syracusan 
women  at  the  festival  at  Alexandria  in  the  fifteenth  idyll 


ALEXANDRIAN   POETRY  389 

are  as  natural  and  as  free  from  conventional  features  as  the 
characters  in  the  mimes  of  Herodas.  In  fact,  the  fifteenth 
idyll,  as  well  as  several  of  the  others,  is  really  a  mime. 

The  scene  of  the  fifteenth  idyll  is  laid  at  Alexandria. 
Two  Syracusan  women  staying  at  Alexandria  agreed  to  go 

at  the  feast  of  Adonis  to  the  palace  of  King 
fdhyilfifteenth    Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  to    see   the  image   of 

Adonis,  which  Queen  Arsinoe  had  decorated 
with  great  magnificence,  and  to  hear  a  hymn  which  was  to 
be  recited  before  the  image  by  a  celebrated  performer. 
Gorgo,  one  of  the  women,  goes  by  appointment  to  the 
house  of  her  friend  Praxinoe,  where  the  dialogue  begins  : 1 

Gorgo.  Is  Praxinoe  at  home  ? 

Praxinoe.  My  dear  Gorgo,  at  last  !  Yes,  here  I  am.  Eunoe,  find 
a  chair — get  a  cushion  for  it. 

Gorgo.  It  will  do  beautifully  as  it  is. 

Praxinoe.  Do  sit  down. 

Gorgo.  Oh,  this  gad-about  spirit  !  I  could  hardly  get  to  you, 
Praxinoe,  through  all  the  crowd  and  all  the  carriages.  Nothing  but 
heavy  boots,  nothing  but  men  in  uniform.  And  what  a  journey  it 
is  !     My  dear  child,  you  really  live  too  far  off. 

Praxinoe.  It  is  all  that  insane  husband  of  mine.  He  has  chosen 
to  come  out  here  to  the  end  of  the  world  and  take  a  hole  of  a  place 
— for  a  house  it  is  not — on  purpose  that  you  and  I  might  not  be 
neighbors.  He  is  always  just  the  same;  anything  to  quarrel  with 
one  !  anything  for  spite  ! 

Gorgo.  My  dear,  don't  talk  so  of  your  husband  before  the  little 
fellow.  Just  see  how  astonished  he  looks  at  you.  Never  mind, 
Zopyrio,  my  pet,  she  is  not  talking  about  papa. 

Praxinoe.  Good  heavens  !     The  child  does  really  understand. 

Gorgo.  Pretty  papa ! 

Praxinoe.  That  pretty  papa  of  his  the  other  day  (though  I  told 
him  beforehand  to  mind  what  he  was  about),  when  I  sent  him  to  a 
shop  to  buy  soap  and  rouge,  brought  me  home  salt  instead ;  stupid, 
great,  big,  interminable  animal  ! 

1  Translation  by  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  essay  on  Pagan  and  Medi- 
aeval Religious  Sentiment. 


390  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Gorgo.  Mine  is  just  the  fellow  to  him.  .  .  .  But  never  mind  now, 
get  on  your  things  and  let  us  be  off  to  the  palace  to  see  the  Adonis. 
I  hear  the  queen's  decorations  are  something  splendid. 

After  a  few  more  words  and  a  series  of  orders  given  by 
Praxinoe  to'  her  maid,  the  two  friends,  with  their  maids,  set 
out.  They  find  the  streets  filled  with  a  moving,  pushing 
crowd.  After  much  effort,  and  some  animated  conversa- 
tion with  an  old  woman  and  two  men,  they  reach  the 
palace  and  are  swept  in  with  the  crowd.  They  admire  the 
decorations,  and  then  become  silent  to  listen  to  the  hymn, 
which  begins  as  follows  : 

Mistress,  who  loveth  the  haunts  of  Golgi,  and  Idalium,  and  high- 
peaked  Eryx,  Aphrodite  that  playeth  with  gold  !  how  have  the  deli- 
cate-footed Hours,  after  twelve  months,  brought  thy  Adonis  back  to 
thee  from  the  ever-flowing  Acheron  !  Tardiest  of  the  immortals  are 
the  boon  Hours,  but  all  mankind  wait  their  approach  with  longing, 
for  they  ever  bring  something  with  them.  O  Cypris,  Dione's  child ! 
thou  didst  change — so  is  the  story  among  men — Berenice  from  mor- 
tal to  immortal,  by  dropping  ambrosia  into  her  fair  bosom ;  and  in 
gratitude  to  thee  for  this,  O  thou  of  many  names  and  many  temples  ! 
Berenice's  daughter,  Arsinoe,  lovely  Helen's  living  counterpart, 
makes  much  of  Adonis  with  all  kinds  of  braveries. 

The  gifts  to  Adonis  are  then  enumerated,  and  the  hymn 
proceeds : 

Now  Cypris,  good-night,  we  leave  thee  with  thy  bridegroom; 
but  to-morrow  morning,  with  the  earliest  dew,  we  will  one  and  all 
bear  him  forth  to  where  the  waves  splash  upon  the  sea-strand,  and 
letting  loose  our  locks,  and  letting  fall  our  robes,  with  bosoms  bare, 
we  will  set  up  this,  our  melodious  strain  : — 

Beloved  Adonis,  alone  of  the  demigods  (so  men  say)  thou  art 
permitted  to  visit  both  us  and  Acheron  !  This  lot  had  neither  Aga- 
memnon, nor  the  mighty  moon-struck  hero  Ajax,  nor  Hector  the 
first-born  of  Hecuba's  twenty  children,  nor  Patroclus,  nor  Pyrrhus 
who  came  home  from  Troy,  nor  those  yet  earlier  Lapithse  and  the 
sons  of  Deucalion,  nor  the  Pelasgians,  the  root  of  Argos  and  of 
Pelops'  isle.     Be  gracious  to  us  now,  loved  Adonis,  and  be  favor- 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  391 

able  to  us  for  the  year  to  come  !     Dear  to  us  hast  thou  been  at  this 
coming,  dear  to  us  shalt  thou  be  when  thou  comest  again. 

After  the  hymn  Gorgo  praises  the  luck  of  the  woman 
who  has  such  a  voice,  then  hurries  to  go  home  to  prepare 
dinner  for  her  cross  husband,  turning  at  last  to  say 
"Adieu,  precious  Adonis,  and  may  you  find  us  all  well 
when  you  come  next  year ! " 

The  liveliness  of  the  dialogue  in  this  idyll  is  unsur- 
passed ;  and  the  hymn,  beautiful  in  itself,  is  interesting  as 
a  specimen  of  the  hymns  written  and  sung  at 

?"..""*        Alexandria, 
idyll. 

Of  all  the  idylls  the  first  is  the  most  charming. 
The  characters  are  Thyrsis  and  a  goatherd.    Thyrsis  begins : l 

Sweet  are  the  whispers  of  yon  pine  that  makes 
Low  music  o'er  the  spring,  and,  goatherd,  sweet 
Thy  piping;  second  thou  to  Pan  alone. 
Is  his  the  horned  ram  ?  then  thine  the  goat. 
Is  his  the  goat  ?  to  thee  shall  fall  the  kid; 
And  toothsome  is  the  flesh  of  unmilked  kids. 

The  goatherd  replies,  praising  the  songs  of  the  shep- 
herd Thyrsis.  Thyrsis  asks  him  to  play  on  his  pipe,  but 
he  refuses,  saying  he  dares  not  pipe  at  noon  for  fear  of 
Pan.  In  his  turn  he  asks  Thyrsis  to  sing  him  the  song  of 
Daphnis'  woes,  promising  him  as  a  reward  a  goat  with  two 
kids  and  a  carven  bowl,  which  he  describes  in  great  detail. 
Then  Thyrsis  sings : 

Begin,  sweet  maids,  begin  the  woodland  song. 
The  voice  of  Thyrsis,  ^Etna's  Thyrsis,  I. 
Where  were  ye,  Nymphs,  oh  where,  when  Daphnis  pined  ? 
In  fair  Pencils'  or  in  Pindus'  glens  ? 
For  great  Anapus'  stream  was  not  your  haunt, 
Nor  ^Etna's  cliff,  nor  Acis'  sacred  rill. 

Begin,  sweet  maids,  begin  the  woodland  song. 
O'er  him  the  wolves,  the  jackals  howled  o'er  him; 
The  lion  in  the  oak-copse  mourned  his  death. 

1  Calverley's  translation. 
26 


392  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Begin,  sweet  maids,  begin  the  woodland  song. 
The  kine  and  oxen  stood  around  his  feet, 
The  heifers  and  the  calves  wailed  all  for  him. 

Begin,  sweet  maids,  begin  the  woodland  song. 
First  from  the  mountains  Hermes  came,  and  said, 
"Daphnis,  who  frets  thee  ?     Lad,  whom  lov'st  thou  so  ?  " 

Begin,  sweet  maids,  begin  the  woodland  song. 

Then  come  the  herdsmen,  the  god  Priapus,  and  Aphro- 
dite. Daphnis  curses  her  for  causing  his  woe,  then  bids 
farewell  to  beasts  and  hill  and  stream,  and  last  of  all  to 
Pan.     Then  the  refrain  changes  : 

Forget,  sweet  maids,  forget  your  woodland  song. 
"Come,  king  of  song,  o'er  this  my  pipe,  compact 
With  wax  and  honey-breathing,  arch  thy  lip : 
*■      For  surely  am  I  torn  from  life  by  love." 

'  Forget,  sweet  maids,  forget  your  woodland  song. 
"From  thicket  now  and  thorn  let  violets  spring, 
Now  let  white  lilies  drape  the  juniper, 
And  pines  grow  figs,  and  nature  all  go  wrong ; 
For  Daphnis  dies.     Let  deer  pursue  the  hounds, 
And  mountain  owls  outsing  the  nightingale." 

Forget,  sweet  maids,  forget  your  woodland  song. 
So  spake  he,  and  he  never  spake  again. 
Fair  Aphrodite  would  have  raised  his  head ; 
But  all  his  thread  was  spun.     So  down  the  stream 
Went  Daphnis :  closed  the  waters  o'er  a  head 
Dear  to  the  Nine,  of  Nymphs  not  unbeloved. 

Forget,  sweet  maids,  forget  your  woodland  strain. 

After  a  few  words  of  compliment  and  farewell,  Thyrsis 
and  the  goatherd  separate.  , 

Other  idylls  of  Theocritus  are  as  interesting  as  the  first, 
but  none  so  beautiful. 

The  two  chief  imif,A*nrs  of  Theocritus,  aside 
ion  an  fr0m  the  unknown  authors  of  the  poems  false- 

ly ascribed  to  Theocritus  himself,  are  jBion.and 
Moschus.  Bion  of  Smyrna  was  a  contemporary  of  Theoc- 
ritus.    He  seems  to  have  lived  at  Syracuse  and  to  have 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  393 

died  of  poison.  Seventeen  poems,  some  of  them  fragmen- 
tary, are  preserved  under  his  name.  The  most  important 
of  these  is  the  Lament  for  Adonis,  modeled  upon  the  song 
at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  idyll  of  Theocritus,  with  some 
features  of  the  lament  for  Daphnis  in  the  first  idyll.  Bion 
seems  in  general  to  have  been  a  skillful  and  pleasing  poet, 
chiefly  of  love-poems.  Moschus  of  Syracuse  was  a  friend 
of  Aristarchus,  and  lived  therefore  in  the  first  half  of  the 
second  century  b.  c.  His  most  celebrated  poem  (which 
some  scholars  declare  is  not  his  at  all)  is  a  Lament  for 
Bion,  a  close  imitation  of  Bion's  Lament  for  Adonis.  His 
other  poems  (seven  idylls  and  three  epigrams)  stand  in  no 
close  relation  to  the  idylls  of  Theocritus.  The  longest  of 
them  are  the  Europa  and  the  Megara,  the  first  of  which  is 
an  account  of  the  carrying  off  of  Europa  by  Zeus  in  the 
form  of  a  bull,  the  second  a  conversation  between  Megara, 
the  wife  of  Heracles,  and  his  mother  Alcmene.  The  poems 
of  Bion  and  Moschus  are  pleasing,  but  by  no  means  great. 
Of  the  two,  Bion  is  the  better  poet. 

—Theocritus  is  a  poet  of  real  feeling  and  natural  grace, 
though  living  in  an  age  of  artificiality.     But  there  were 

other  poets  of  great  reputation  who  lacked 
poetry  these  qualities  and  produced  poems  deficient 

in  passion  and  inspiration,  learned  and  finished, 

sometimes  even  stilted,  rather  than  natural  or  graceful. 

The  chief  of  these  are  Callimachus,  Aratus,  Apollonius  of 

Ehodes,  and  Lycophron. 

Callimachus  of  Cyrene,  the  son  of  Battus  and  Mesatma, 

was  born  not  far  from  310  b.  c.     He  studied  at  first  at  Cy- 

_  ...  ,  rene,  then  at  Athens,  and  was  for  a  time  a 
Callimachus.  '  ' 

schoolmaster  in  a  suburb  of  Alexandria,  called 
Eleusis.  At  the  death  of  Zenodotus  he  was  made  librarian, 
and  remained  in  charge  of  the  library  until  his  death,  about 

240  B.  C.      He  Was   the   great   «P.ho>r   a-nd  library  nnt.VinrJty 

of_his  times,  admired  and  venerated  by  a  numerous  circle 
of  followers.     Apollonius  dared  to  disagree  with  him,  main- 


394  GREEK  LITERATURE 

taining  that  long  epics  in  the  manner  of  Homer  were  still 
to  be  desired,  while  Callimachus  taught  that  shorter  poems 
were  more  desirable  and  that  "  a  great  book  is  a  great  evil." 
As  a  result  of  this  literary  quarrel,  in  which  both  parties 
descended  to  personalities,  Apollonius  was  at  last  forced  to 
withdraw  to  Rhodes.  The  learned  prose  works  of  Callim- 
achus were  probably  in  his  own  day  considered  more  im- 
portant than  his  poems,  but  their  importance  to  us  is  con- 
siderably less.  Some  of  them  have  already  been  mentioned 
(see  page  377).  His  poetic  works  were  of  all  kinds :  trage- 
dies, comedies,  satyr  dramas,  various  lyric  poems,  elegies, 
epigrams,  and  one  epic,  the  Hecale.  The  longest  of  his 
poems  was  a  collection  of  elegies  entitled  Causes  or  Origins, 
in  which  the  origins  of  various  families,  religious  rites, 
cities,  and  customs  were  explained.  This  work  enjoyed  a 
great  reputation,  but  has  been  almost  entirely  lost.  We 
now  possess  six  hymns,  seventy-three  epigrams,  some  of 
them  of  great  beauty,  and  some  fragments  of  the  Hecale, 
in  addition  to  the  Latin  translation  by  Catullus  of  a  poem 
entitled  The  Lock  of  Berenice. 

Five  hymns  are  addressed  to  Zeus,  Apollo,  Artemis,  Delos, 
Demeter,  and  one  is  "  On  the  Bath  of  Pallas."  All  are  in 
hexameters  except  the  last,  which  is  in  elegiacs.  The  first 
four  are  in  Ionic,  the  last  two  in  Doric  dialect.  The  verse 
is  written  with  the  prftftteat-  rarft  a.tiH  perfection,  and  there 
is  no  confusion  of  thought.  The  words  employed  are  some- 
times intentionally  obscure,  but  that  is  because  Callima- 
chus shows  his  learning  by  using  obsolete  or  rare  words, 
not  because  his  vocabulary  is  deficient.  Many  myths  are 
mentioned  that  have  no  immediate  connection  with  the 
matter  in  hand,  and  this  gives  Callimachus  an  opportunity 
to  show  his  learning  in  another  field.  That  he  writes  his 
hymns  with  no  real  religious  feeling  is  plain  from  the  care 
he  takes  to  compare  the  gods  with  his  master  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  and  to  bring  in  references  to  political  events, 
and  even  to  his  quarrel  with  Apollonius.     The  Lock  of 


ALEXANDRIAN   POETRY  395 

Berenice  is  a  clever  piece  of  court  flattery.  Queen  Berenice, 
when  her  husband  departed  for  a  war,  consecrated  a  lock 
of  hair  to  Aphrodite.  The  lock  disappeared  from  the  tem- 
ple, and  the  astronomer  Conon,  happening  just  at  that 
time  to  discover  a  new  constellation,  declared  that  Bere- 
nice's hair  had  been  set  among  the  stars.  Callimachus 
represents  the  lock  of  hair  wishing  it  had  not  been  severed 
from  Berenice's  head.  The  Hecale  was  a  short  epic  telling 
how  an  old  woman  named  Hecale  entertained  Theseus  at 
her  house.  The  adventures  of  Theseus  are  woven  into  the 
story,  which  was  written  to  show  Apollonius  what  a  modern 
epic  ought  to  be.  So  much  of  the  poetry  of  Callimachus  is 
lost  that  our  judgment  of  him  may  not  be  perfectly  just, 
He  was  immensely  admired  by  his  contemporaries  and  by 
the  Romans  of  the  Augustan  age,  though  there  were  some 
critics  who  denied  his  greatness.  On  the  whole  he  seems 
to  have  lacked  the  inspiration  of  genius,  but  to  have  had 
^readability  in  versification  and  great  versatility.  He 
neither  rose  to  the  greatest  heights  of  poetry  nor  fell  below 
the  level  of  good  literary  production. 

Aratus,  the  chief  of  Alexandrian  didactic   poets,  was 
born  at  Soli,  in  Cilicia,  about  315  b.  c,  and  died  at  Pella, 

in  Macedonia,  not  long  before  240  b.  c.     His 
i  ac  ic  father,  Athenodorus,  was  a  distinguished  citizen, 

and  Aratus  received  a  good  education  at  Soli, 
at  Cos,  where  he  knew  Philetas  and  his  circle,  and  at 
Athens,  where  he   studied   under  the   Peripatetic  Praxi- 

phanes  before   passing  over  to  Zeno  and  the 

Stoic  School.  About  276  he  accepted  an  invi- 
tation to  the  court  of  Antigonus  Gonatas  at  Pella,  whence 
he  went  to  the  court  of  Antiochus  I  in  274.  He  afterward 
returned  to  Pella,  where  he  died.  He  was  a  friend  of 
many  of  the  important  literary  men  of  his  age,  including 
Theocritus,  Callimachus,  and  Alexander  of  iEtolia,  and  his 
own  works  were  numerous  and  various.  His  chief  work, 
the  one  to  which  he  owes  his  reputation,  bears  the  title 


396  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Phenomena,  It  is  a  handbook  of  astronomy  in  1154  hex- 
ameter verses,  based  upon  the  prose  treatises  of  Eudoxus  of 
Cnidus,  a  contemporary  of  Plato.  The  greater  part  (lines 
1-732)  describes  the  chief  stars  and  constellations,  and  tells 
the  myths  connected  with  them.  The  rest  (lines  733-1154) 
treats  of  the  signs  by  which  the  weather  may  be  foretold. 
The  verses  are  smooth,  though  filled  with  Homeric  phrases. 
There  is  a'lflck  of  poetic  firp.,  which  is  natural,  when  the 
subject  of  the  poem  is  considered,  but  the  description  is 
clear  and  simple.  The  myths  .noun Anted  with  the  gfaga 
were  by  no  means  all  invented  by  ^ratiiR.  but  he  is  the  first 
who  systematically  assigned  great  numbers  of  demigods 
each  to  a  particular  star  or  constellation.  His  work  was 
popular  throughout  antiquity,  was  frequently  edited,  was 
translated  into  Latin  by  Cicero  and  others,  and  continued 
to  be  read  until  the  seventh  century  after  Christ.  Of  his 
other  works  we  know  comparatively  little.     The  learned 

Eratosthenes  (see   page  376)  wrote  an  astro- 
ra  os    enes.   nomjcai  p0em  called  Hermes,  and  in  the  middle 

of  the  second  century  b.  c.  Meander  of  Colo- 
phon wrote  a  number  of  more  or  less  scientific  works, 
among  them  two  didactic  poems  on  the  bites  of  animals 
and  cures  for  poisons.  He  was  regarded  as  the  greatest  of 
Alexandrian  didactic  poets  after  Aratus. 

Callimachus  maintained   that    the   day   for  long   epic 
poems  was  passed,  that  the  writing  of  such  poems  could  be 

nothing  but   profitless    imitation   of  Homer. 

Rhodes11118  °f  The  chief  °PPonent  of  this  view  was  Apol- 
lonius  of  Ehodes,  who  was  born  at  Alexandria 
(or  at  Naucratis),  but  is  called  "the  Rhodian,"  because 
he  lived  at  Rhodes  after  his  quarrel  with  Callimachus. 
Whether  he  was  really  a  pupil  of  Callimachus  is  somewhat 
doubtful.  It  is  also  uncertain  whether  he  returned  to 
Alexandria  and  was  made  head  of  the  library  after  the 
death  of  Eratosthenes.  His  life  extended  from  about  295 
to  about  215  b.  c.     He  wrote  a  number  of  learned  works, 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  397 

but  was  better  known  as  a  poet  than  as  a  scholar,  and  his 
most  famous  work,  the  Argonautica,  an  epic  poem  in  four 
books,  is  preserved  to  us  entire. 

The   Argnnautiga  tells  the  story  of  the  expedition  of 

Jason  and  his  companions  to  Colchis  in  quest  of  the  golden 

fleece.     The  first  two  books  contain  the  narra- 

t^aArg0naU"  tive  of  the  assemblin&  of  the  Argonauts  and 
their  voyage  to  Colchis ;  the  third  and  fourth 
describe  the  seizure  of  the  golden  fleece  by  the  aid  of 
Medea,  and  the  return  to  Argos.  The  whole  is  enlivened 
and  enriched  by  the  insertion  of  many  episodes  and  com- 
bats. The  choice  of  subject  was  a  happy  one,  for  the  story 
is  interesting,  and  had  not  been  treated  by  a  great  epic 
poet.  Apollo.-"  "i«  was  ambitious  to  be  the  Homer  of  his 
time,  to  write  a  long  epic  after  the  model  of  the  Iliad  or 
the  Odyssey,  but  at  the  same  time  to  appeal  to  the  taste  of 
the  period.  In  this  he  was  eminently  successful.  He  imi- 
tated the  Iliads  and  still  more  the  Odyssey,  in  his  narrative 
of  adventures  and  combats,  his  catalogue  of  heroes,  and  his 
frequent  dramatic  introduction  of  dialogue.  His  love  for 
the  marvelous  is  a  common  Alexandrian  trait,  but  the 
Odyssey  also  contains  many  marvelous  tales ;  this  element 
may  therefore  be  the  result  of  imitation  as  well  as  of  orig- 
inality. But  Apollonius  shows  real  originality  in  his 
psychological  analysis,  his  elaborate  description  of  the 
progress  of  passion  and  emotion  in  the  human  heart.  This 
is  most  clearly  seen  in  the  account  of  Medea's  love  for 
Jason,  her  hesitation  and  mental  torment  in  the  third 
book.  Her  love  is  brought  about  in  true  Alexandrian 
fashion  by  an  arrow  of  the  god  Eros,  who  is  sent  to 
Colchis  for  the  purpose  by  his  mother,  Aphrodite,  but 
the  growth  and  progress  of  her  passion  is  portrayed  with 
such  realism  and  human  feeling  that  we  forget  its  con- 
ventional mythological  origin.  It  is  from  this  book  that 
Virgil  derives  his  description  of  the  love  of  Dido  in  the 
^Eneid.     A  translation  of  a  few  lines  may  give  some  idea 


398  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  the  vivid  imagination  and  descriptive  power  of  Apol- 
lonius : 

Then  night  spread  her  shadows  o'er  the  earth ;  and  on  the  sea 
the  sailors  from  their  ships  gazed  on  Helice  and  the  stars  of  Orion ; 
and  wayfarer  and  watchman  at  the  gate  longed  now  for  sleep;  and 
slumber  wrapped  even  the  mother  by  her  children  dead ;  no  barking 
of  the  dogs  was  any  more  heard  in  the  town,  nor  sound  of  voices ; 
silence  held  the  darkling  shades.  But  to  Medea  sweet  sleep  did 
not  come.  .  .  .  And  many  things  her  heart  within  her  breast  sug- 
gested; and  as  a  beam  of  sunlight  in  a  house  quivers  reflected  from 
water  newly  poured  into  a  caldron  or  basin,  and  with  quick  turning 
flashes  here  and  there,  so  quivered  in  the  maiden's  breast  her  heart. 
.  .  .  And  now  she  planned  to  give  him  the  drugs  to  sooth  the  bulls, 
now  not  to  give  them ;  then  to  die  herself;  then  not  to  die  herself 
nor  give  the  drugs,  but  quietly  to  bear  her  wretched  fate.  Then 
she  sat  up  and  pondered,  and  cried  out:  "O  wretched  me!  now 
whither  shall  I  turn  in  troubles;  in  all  ways  my  mind  is  at  a  loss; 
and  for  my  pain  there  is  no  cure;  it  burns  unceasingly.  Would 
that  I  had  died  by  Artemis'  swift  arrows  ere  I  saw  him  I " 1 

At  last  her  decision  is  reached  and  she  exclaims : 

"Farewell,  modesty;  farewell,  glory  of  my  life!  Let  him  be 
saved  uninjured  by  my  aid,  then  let  him  go  where  his  heart  bids 
him." 

In  most  of  his  work  Apollonius  is  little  more  than  a 
skillful  and  learned  imitator  of  Homer,  but  in  his  descrip- 
tion of  human  passion  he  rises  to  heights  which  few  poets 
have  reached. 

Of  the   other   epic    poets    few  require    any  mention. 

Euphorion   of   Chalcis  in   Euboea,  born  in  276   b.  c,  was 

librarian  of  Antiochus  the  Great  from  224  to 

up  onon.       ^g^     jje   wrof.e    a    number    of   mythological 

epics  in  an  obscure  style,  overloaded  with  rare 
words  and  uncommon  expressions.  His  poems  were,  how- 
ever, read  and  to  some  extent  imitated  by  several  Eoman 
poets,  including  Propertius  and  Ovid.     Ehianus  of  Crete 

1  Argonautica,  iii,  743  ff. 


ALEXANDRIAN  POETRY  399 

was  a  philologist  and  poet  who  wrote  in  the  second  half  of 
the  third  century.  He  made  an  edition  of  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey,  and  wrote  a  number  of  epics,  the  best  known 
of  which  is  the  Messeniaca,  containing  stories  from  the 
history  of  Messenia.  From  this  source  Pausanias,  in  the 
second  century  after  Christ,  derived  much  of  what  he  tells 
about  Messenian  history. 

Callimachus  and  others  used  their  poetry  as  a  means  of 
showing  their  learning  both  in  the  matter  of  mythology 
and  in  the  selection  of  unusual  words  and 
phrases.  The  same  tendency,  carried  to  its 
uttermost  limit,  is  seen  in  the  Alexandra  of  Lycophron. 
This  learned  poet  was  born  at  Chalcis  in  Eubcea  about  325 
b.  c.  He  was  the  son  of  Socles  and  adopted  son  of  Lycus 
of  Ehegium.  His  life  was  spent  at  Chalcis,  Athens,  and 
Alexandria.  His  works  were  for  the  most  part  tragedies 
on  various  subjects  from  the  earliest  tales  of  the  heroes  to 
the  most  recent  history.  He  also,  when  employed  in  the 
Alexandrian  Library,  wrote  a  prose  treatise,  On  Comedy. 
But  his  only  extant  work  is  the  Alexandra,  in  fourteen 
hundred  and  seventy-four  iambic  trimeters.  It  has  the 
form  of  a  messenger's  report  in  a  tragedy.  A  slave,  appar- 
ently, reports  to  Priam  the  obscure  prophecies  of  his  in- 
spired daughter  Alexandra,  ordinarily  called  Cassandra. 
These  prophecies  extend  down  to  the  Alexandrian  epoch. 
They  are  almost  unintelligible,  for  Lycophron  evidently 
prided  himself  upon  his  ability  to  write  incomprehensible 
verse.  To  this  fact  is  due  the  reputation  of  the  poem,  for 
it  became  a  favorite  subject  of  philological  and  literary 
criticism  and  interpretation.  The  versification  is  skillful, 
but  the  poem  is  so  artificial  and  obscure  as  to  be  almost 
without  interest  except  as  an  example  of  the  faults  of 
Alexandrianism. 


CHAPTEE  XXXVI 

THE  TRANSITION  TO  THE  ROMAN  PERIOD 

Polybius,  about  210  to  about  120  b.  c. — His  works — His  qualities  as 
an  historian — His  style  and  composition — Later  historians — Apollodo- 
rus,  about  150  b.  c. — Alexander  Polyhistor,  about  105  to  after  40  b.  c. — 
Grammarians — Dionysius  Thrax,  about  125  b.  c. — Didymus  of  Alexan- 
dria, about  30  b.  c. — Philosophers — Panaetius,  about  185  to  about  110 
b.  c. — Hecato,  about  120  b.  c. — Posidonius,  about  135  to  about  51  B.  c. 

The  latter  part  of  the  Alexandrian  period  was  the  time 
when  Eome,  already  mistress  of  Italy,  was  extending  her 
power  to  Greece,  which  became  a  Eoman  prov- 
from  the  ince  in  1^6  b.  c,  and  to  the  eastern  regions  of 

Alexandrian  the  Hellenic  world.  Attalus  III  bequeathed 
to  the  Roman  ^  kmgclom  of  Pergamum  to  the  Eoman  sen- 
ate in  133  B.  c. ;  and  finally,  in  31  B.  c,  Egypt 
became  a  Eoman  province,  and  the  whole  civilized  world 
was  Eoman.  These  great  changes  had  their  influence  upon 
literature — an  influence  which  began  even  before  the  year 
146  and  continued  without  interruption  after  that  date. 
No  fixed  line  separates  the  Alexandrian  from  the  Eoman 
period  of  Greek  literature;  but  the  time  from  about  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  to  the  conquest  of  Egypt  is  a 
time  of  transition  in  which  some  writers  are  really  Alexan- 
drian, while  others  belong  rather  to  the  following  period. 
The  most  important  writer  of  this  transitional  period  is  the 
historian  Polybius — the  greatest  of  Greek  historians,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  Thucydides. 

Polytdus  was  born  at  Megalopolis,  in  Arcadia,  about  210 
400 


TRANSITION  TO  THE  ROMAN  PERIOD  401 

B.  c.  His  father,  Lycortas,  was  a  friend  of  Philopoemen, 
and  succeeded  him  as  general  of  the  Achaean  League  in 
183.     To  Polybius  was  given  the  honor  of  escorting  the 

ashes  of  the  dead  Philopoemen  to  their  last 
°  yrfUS'         resting-place  at  his  native  Megalopolis.  _In_190 

and  189  b.  c.  he  had  taken  part  in  the  campaign 
of  King  Eumenes  of  Pergamum  against  the  Galatians  in 
AsiaMinor.  In  181  he  was  chosen  to  accompany  his  father 
on  an  embassy  to  Alexandria.  During  the  struggle  of  Mace- 
donia against  Rome  (171-168)  Polybius  favored  neutrality, 
though  he  inclined  toward  Eome  as  early  as  169,  when  he 
was  hipparch  in  the  army  of  the  Achaean  League.  After 
the  defeat  of  Perseus,  King  of  Macedonia,  Poly bius_was  one 
of  the_ thousand  noble  Achaeans  sent  to  Eome  as  hostages 
in  167.  Here  he  was  filled  with  admiration  for  the  Romans, 
their  government,  their  energy,  and  their  power,  and  hence- 
forth he  was  a  firm  supporter  of  the  Roman  rule.  He  was 
intimate  with  the  family  of  ^Emilius  Paulus,  especially  with 
his  sons  Fabius  and  Scipio,  and  obtained  permission  to  live 
at  Rome  instead  of  being  quartered  in  some  obscure  Italian 
town,  as  were  most  of  his  fellow  hostages.  He  was  even 
allowed  to  accompany  his  friend  Scipio  on  his  journeys, 
and  to  undertake  some  journeys  of  his  own  to  visit  scenes 
of  historic  interest.  In  150  b.  c.  he  was  allowed  to  return 
home  with  the  other  hostages,  but  visited  Rome  at  least  twice 
after  that  time.  He  was  with  Scipio  at  the  fall  of  Carthage 
in  146,  In  the  somewhat  complicated  negotiations  between 
Rome  and  the  various  cities  of  Greece  he  was  the  agent, 
official  or  confidential,  sometimes  of  one  and  sometimes  of 
the  other  party,  and  many  cities  showed  their  gratitude  by 
'setting  up  his  statue  in  the  market-place.  He  died  at 
Megalopolis  at  the  age  of  eighty-two — not  far,  therefore, 
from  120  b.  c. — as  the  result  of  a  fall  from  his  horse. 

The  chief  work  of  Polybius  was  his  History  in  forty 
books.  He  also  wrote  a  separate  work  on  Philopoemen  and 
some  Commentaries  on  Military  Tactics.     The  other  works 


402  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ascribed  to  him  are  probably  parts  of  his  History.  In  this 
great  work  he  told  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  seventy- 
five  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  second  Punic  War  to 

the  fall  of  Corinth  (221-U6  B.C.).  The  first 
Th*  two  books  form  the  introduction,  and  contain  ( 

the  history  of  Rome  and  Carthage  from  266  to 
221  b.  c.  The  remainder  is  the  history  of  the  rise  and  de- 
velopment of  the  rule  of  Rome  over  the  civilized  world.  Of 
the  entire  work  only  a  relatively  small  part  is  preserved. 
The  first  five  books  exist  entire^ carrying  the  narrative  to 
the  battle  of  Cannse ;  long  extracts  from  the  next  thirteen 
books  are  preserved,  but  of  the  last  twenty-two  we  have 
only  fragments  varying  in  length  and  importance. 

Polybius,  like  Ephorus,  undertook  to  write  a  history  of 
the  known  world,  but,  unlike  Ephorus,  he  grouped  his  nar- 
rative about  a  central  idea,  the  greatness  and  growth  of 
Rome.  Polybius  sees  in  the  course  of  history  one  line  of 
progress,  toward  a  universal  Roman  Empire.  Like  Timaeus, 
General  ne  uses  the  books  of  earlier  writers,  and  searches 

qualities  of  out  the  truth  in  archives  and  inscriptions,  but 
Polybius.  ke  is  not  conteut  with  the  knowledge  derived 
from  written  sources.  He  was  himself  a  statesman  and  a 
man  of  affairs,  and  he  appreciated  fully  the  importance  to 
the  historian  of  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  military  actions, 
public  men,  topography,  and  geography.  He  was  a  great 
traveler  at  different  times  of  his  life,  and  knew  by  personal 
observation  most  of  the  lands  and  places  where  the  events 
narrated  in  his  history  took  place.  Several  books  of  his 
work  were  devoted  in  whole  or  in  great  part  to  geography. 
Like  Thucydides,  Polybius  intended  his  history  to  be  not 
a  mere  delight  to  the  ear,  but  a  work  of  permanent  value. 
He  believes  that  events  follow  each  other  in  sequence  of 
cause  and  effect,  ancWus  main  purpose  is  to  find  the  causes 
of  events,  that  his  readers  may  learn  what  to  avoid  and  what 
to  desire.  But  while  Thucydides  lets  the  events  speak  for 
themselves,  keeping  himself  carefully  in  the  background, 


TRANSITION  TO  THE  ROMAN  PERIOD  403 

Polybius  constantly  brings  himself  and  his  opinions  before 
the  reader.  His  interest  is  entirely  in  the  political  and 
military  side  of  history,  with  no  care  for  what  is  now  called 
social  science.  He  does  not  believe  that  the  gods  influence 
human  affairs  except  in  the  form  of  chance  or  fortune, 
and  he  thinks  the  wise  man  should  so  act  as  to  leave  to 
chance  as  small  a  share  in  the  progress  of  events  as  possi- 
ble. He  accepts  to  a  great  extent  the  philosophical  doc- 
trines of  the  Stoics,  perhaps  because  he  was  influenced  by 
the  Stoic  Pansetius,  whom  he  knew  in  Rome,  but  he  does  not 
accept  them  in  their  entirety.  He  is  too  much  a  practical 
man  to  govern  himself  by  any  philosophical  theory.  And 
it  is  especially  the  practical  side  of  his  history  on  which  he 
prides  himself.  His  work  is  to  be  "  pragmatic,"  that  is,  de- 
voted to  the  accurate  study  and  exposition  of  the  things 
which  form  the  subject-matter  of  history,  politics,  and  war ; 
and  these  things  are  to  be  so  studied  as  to  be  useful.  / 

The  style  of  Polybius  is  clear,  but  somewhat  prolix ;  he 

cares  little  for  literary  elegance,  except  in  the  one  point  of 

avoiding  hiatus  ;  his  tone  is  always  serious,  be- 

y  e  a1?, .         cause  seriousness  befits  the  dignity  of  his  pur- 
composition.  &       j  r 

pose.  There  are  few  traces  of  imagination  and 
hardly_a  gleam  of  humor.  Polybius  narrates  without  dra- 
matic power,  and  interrupts  his  narrative  by  disquisitions 
and  discussions  conducted  without  variety  or  imagination. 
He  is  far  from  being  a  literary  artist,  but  as  an  historian 
he  occupies  a  position  of  honor  because  of  his  industrious 
search  for  information,  his  love  of  truth,  his  remarkable 
impartiality,  his  personal  acquaintance  with  affairs,  and  his 
unus,ual__br^ajitlL-Qf  view. 

The  historians  who  follow  Polybius  merit  little  atten- 
tion. They  had  not  his  power,  and  their  works  are  lost. 
Apollodorus  of  Athens,  who  lived  at  Pergamum  under  At- 
talus  II,  wrote  a  metrical  Chronicle  (Chronica),  giving  the 
sequence  of  events  from  the  Trojan  War  to  the  year  144  B.  c. 
He  was  also  the  author  of  several  other  works,  including  a 


404  GREEK  LITERATURE 

treatise  On  the  Gods,  and  has  been  wrongly  regarded  as  the 
author  of  a  mythological  handbook  bearing  his  name,  which 

was  really  composed  some  centuries  later.  Alex- 
historians,  ander  of  Miletus,  called  Polyhistor,  was  a  pris- 
Apoiiodorus.  oner  of  war  at  Eome  under  Sulla,  and  released 
Alexander        by  Lentulus.     He  compiled  learned  works  on 

various  subjects,  including  philosophy,  man- 
ners and  customs  of  the  Jews,  and  strange  phenomena.  Of 
other  historians  of  this  period  it  is  needless  to  speak. 

Dionysius  the  Thracian.  a  pupil   of  Aristarchus,  was 
born  at  Alexandria,  of  Thracian  parents,  somewhat  before 

the  middle  of  the  second  century  b.  c.     He  de- 

*v  ^  J*?j        serves  mention  because  he  was  the  first  to  write 
tne  Tnracian. 

a  complete  grammar.  His  Grammar  was  used, 
commented,  enlarged,  and  abbreviated  for  centuries,  and 
still  exists.  His  pupil,  Tyrannion,  is  known  especially  for 
his  work  in  connection  with  the  unpublished  writings  of 
Aristotle  which  Sulla  brought  to  Eome.  A  famous  philol- 
ogist of  the  first  century  b.  c.  was  Didymus  of  Alexandria, 
who  wrote  countless  learned  works.  Much  of  the  material 
contained  in  the  scholia  written  in  manuscripts  of  classic 
texts  is  due  to  him.  He  died  in  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  his  pupil. 

The  two  most  interesting  philosophers  of  the  transition 
period  are  Panaetius  of  Ehodes  and  Posidonius  of  Apamea, 

in  Syria.  Panaetius  was  born  not  far  from  190 
Panaetius  and   B  ^  an(j .  studied  under  several  of  the  Stoic 

philosophers  of  the  time.  He  went  to  Eome, 
perhaps  about  140  b.  c,  where  he  was  intimate  with  Scipio 
and  knew  Polybius.  He  was  a  liberal  Stoic,  and  his  phi- 
losophy was  well  adapted  to  Eoman  taste.  Some  of  his 
works  were  much  used  by  Cicero  in  compiling  his  own 
philosophical  treatises.  Hecato,  a  pupil  of  Panaetius,  also 
wrote  moral  treatises  which  were  used  by  Cicero  and  Seneca. 
Posidonius  seems  to  have  been  born  about  135  b.  c.  He  was 
a  pupil  of  Panaetius.     He  was  a  noted  scientist,  and  under- 


TRANSITION  TO  THE  ROMAN   PERIOD  405 

took  long  journeys  for  scientific  purposes.  He  was  also  a 
philosopher,  philologist,  geographer,  and  historian.  Like 
Panaetius,  he  was  a  friend  of  the  noted  Romans  of  his  time, 
and  was  influential  in  advancing  the  cause  of  liberal  Stoi- 
cism at  Rome.  His  works,  like  those  of  his  master,  were 
much  used  by  Cicero.  He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-four, 
about  51  b.  c. 

The  names  of  Scipio,  Sulla,  and  Cicero,  which  have  al- 
ready occurred,  show  that  Rome  is  beginning  to  be  the 
home  of  Greek  literature. 


BOOK  IV 

GREEK  LITERATURE  UNDER  TEE 
ROMAN  EMPIRE 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

PROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  DOMITIAN 

Divisions  of  Graeco-Roman  literature — History — Diodorus  Siculus, 
about  90  to  after  21  b.  c. — His  importance — Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus, 
20  b.  c. — His  history  of  Rome — His  rhetorical  works — Caecilius,  about  20 
b.  c. — The  treatise  On  the  Sublime — Strabo,  about  60  b.  c.  to  about  20 
a.  d. — His  works  and  literary  character — Josephus,  37  to  at  least  94 
a.  d. — His  works — Philosophy — Sextius  and  Sotion,  about  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era — Areius  Didymus,  early  first  century  after  Christ — 
The  Tablet  of  Cebes— Cornutus,  65  a. d.— Musonius,  65  a. d—  Philo  the 
Jew,  about  30  a.  d. 

The  period  from  the  middle  of  the  second  century  B.  c. 
to  the  establishment  of  the  empire  by  Augustus  (31  B.  c.) 
is,  in  literary  as  in  other  matters,  a  period  of  transition. 

Greek  literature  after  the  establishment  of  the 
the  period  empire  falls  naturally  into  three  chronological 
from  divisions  :  from  Augustus  to  Domitian,  31  b.  c. 

Augustus  to     to  96  A  D .  from  Nerva  to  the  beginning  of 

the  reign  of  Consfcantine,  96  to  323  A.  D. ;  from 
Constantine  to  Justinian,  323  to  527  A.  d.,  though  the  dates 
are  not  to  be  regarded  as  marking  sharp  lines  of  division. 
The  first  period  was  peculiarly  barren.  Political  events 
occupied  men's  thoughts,  and  the  Greeks,  who  might  at 
other  periods  have  become  important  in  literature,  if  any 
406 


FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO   DOMITIAN  407 

such  there  were,  turned  their  attention  to  such  writing  as 
interested  the  Romans— that  is,  to  practical  matters,  his- 
tory, and  philosophy.  There  was  little  literary  art.  The 
second  period  is  marked  by  a  revival  of  Greek  literature, 
though  poetry  was  little  cultivated.  The  third  period 
brings  the  rise  of  Christianity  and  the  end  of  ancient  lit- 
erature. 

History,  philosophy,  grammar,  and  criticism  are  the  sub- 
jects of  most  of  the  Greek  literature  of  the  earlier  empire. 

The  first  historian  of  this  period  is  Diodorus,  born  about 

90  b.  c,  at  Agyrium,  in  Sicily,  and  usually  called  Diodorus 

Siculus.  His  great  work  was  a  Library  (Bib- 
Diodorus  7   ,,        .      j.   rT.,  L1  ..       „,.,.,      v 

Siculus.  lotheca)  of  History,  the  result  of  thirty  years 

of  diligent  labor,  published  about  30  b.  c.  This 
was  a  history  of  the  world  from  the  earliest  times  to  Caesar's 
conquest  of  Gaul,  in  forty  books.  The  first  six  books  were 
devoted  to  the  mythical  period  before  the  Trojan  War.  Of 
these  we  now  have  the  first  five  and  some  fragments  of  the 
sixth.  The  next  eleven  books  contained  the  history  of  the 
time  between  the  Trojan  War  and  the  death  of  Alexander. 
Seven  of  these  are  extant,  embracing  the  period  from  480 
to  323  b.  c.  The  last  twenty-three  books  carried  the  account 
from  the  death  of  Alexander  to  the  conquest  of  Gaul.  Of 
these  only  three  books  remain,  relating  to  the  years  from 
323  to  302  b.  c.  Of  the  forty  books  of  the  work  fifteen  are 
preserved. 

£  The  work  is  of  great  importance,  because  it  is  now  the 
only  source  from  which  we  can  derive  information  concern- 
importance  iRg  ^ne  history  of  several  important  periods, 
and  qualities  Diodorus  compiled  his  history  with  immense 
of  his  work,  diligence  from  the  works  of  earlier  historians, 
especially  Ephorus,  Theopompus,  and  Timseus,  and  since 
those  earlier  works  are  now  lost  for  the  most  part,  the 
compilation  of  Diodorus  is  invaluable  to  the  historian.  It 
contains  the  history  not  only  of  Greece,  but  of  other  coun- 
tries as  well,  and  mentions  not  only  political  events,  but 
27 


408  GREEK  LITERATURE 

also  such  matters  as  the  births  and  deaths  of  poets  and 
artists.  Dates  are  carefully  given  by  Olympiads,  Athenian 
archons,  and  Eoman  consuls,  and  in  the  comparatively  few- 
cases  in  which  false  dates  are  given  the  fault  is  undoubtedly 
not  that  of  Diodorus  himself,  but  of  the  earlier  writer  from 
whom  he  derives  his  information,  for  his  great  weakness  as 
an  historian  lies  in  his  lack  of  critical  power  and  inde- 
pendent judgment.  He  wished  and  intended  to  write  a 
great  history,  and  succeeded  in  making  a  useful  compila- 
tion, doubly  useful  to  us  now  that  the  sources  from  which 
he  drew  his  information  have  disappeared. 

His  style  is  somewhat  monotonous,  and  full  of  abstract, 
vague  words,  as  is  the  style  of  most  of  his  contemporaries. 

He  has,  however,  the  great  merit  of  clearness, 

and  he  avoids  the  error  of  introducing  numer- 
ous oratorical  harangues,  an  error  into  which  many  Greek 
historians  fell. 

Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  in  Asia  Minor,  came  to 
Eome  in  the  year  30  b.  c,  and  remained  there  for  twenty- 
Dionysius  of  two  years,  in  intimate  relations  with  the  culti- 
Haiicamas-  vated  aristocrats  of  the  capital,  such  as  Rufus 
sus#  Melitius  and  iElius  Tubero.     During  this  time 

he  learned  Latin,  taught  rhetoric  and  Greek  literature,  and 
wrote  his  Roman  Arclmology,  as  well  as  a  number  of 
treatises  on  subjects  connected  with  his  teaching.  AVhether 
he  left  Eome  after  twenty-two  years  or  not  is  unknown. 

The  Roman  Archmology  was  a  history  of  Eome  from  the 
beginning  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  first  Punic  War  (264 

b.  a).     It  consisted  of  twenty  books,  the  first 
f  Rom  °ry      eleven  of  which,  ending  with  the  overthrow  of 

the  decemvirs  in  449  b.  a,  are  preserved,  while 
of  the  other  nine  books  we  have  only  extracts  and  frag- 
ments. Dionysius  pays  great  attention  to  the  origin  of 
Eoman  institutions,  both  political  and  religious,  but  he 
tries  to  make  his  account  agree  with  what  he  saw  about 
him  at  Eome  in  his  own  time.    He  therefore  fails  frequently 


FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  DOMITIAN  409 

to  give  correct  information.  Still  he  consulted  the  best 
authorities,  not  only  Greek  historians,  such  as  Polybius  and 
Timseus,  but  more  especially  Eoman  writers,  such  as  Cato, 
Fabius  Maximus,  Valerius  Antias,  and  others,  and  his  work 
possesses  great  value  to  us,  though  it  must  be  used  with 
caution.  He  is  hot  a  critical  historian,  but  rather  a  rhetor 
writing  history.  He  cares  at  least  as  much  for  rhetorical 
display  as  for  historical  accuracy,  and  his  presentation  of 
facts  and  events  is  further  influenced  by  his  theory  that 
history  should  be  used  to  inculcate  piety  and  morality. 
His  style  has  little  merit.  It  is  correct  but  monotonous, 
for  even  the  numerous  speeches  introduced  differ  little 
from  the  narrative  parts,  except  in  being  composed  in  the 
first  and  second  persons  instead  of  the  third.  In  spite  of 
the  time  and  labor  expended  upon  the  history,  Dionysius 
was  primarily  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  and  the  history  is  a 
series  of  specimens  of  what  he  regards  as  good  writing. 

In  his  rhetorical  works  Dionysius  is  seen  to  better  ad- 
vantage, though  here  also  he  makes  it  clear  that  he  is  not 
a  great  writer  or   thinker.      The  works  pre- 

etonca         served  to  us  are :  Studies  on  the  Ancient  Ora- 
works. 

tors,  of  which  only  the  first  parts,  treating  of 

Lysias,  Isocrates,  and  Isaeus,  are  preserved ;  On  Dinarchus, 
an  appendix  to  the  Studies  on  the  Ancient  Orators ;  treatises 
On  the  Arrangement  of  Words,  On  Demosthenes 's  Power  in 
Speaking,  and  On  the  Character  of  Thucydides,  besides  two 
Letters  to  Ammams  (on  the  chronology  of  the  orations  of 
Demosthenes  and  on  peculiarities  of  Thucydides),  and  a 
Letter  to  Gnwus  Pompey,  containing,  with  other  matter, 
criticisms  of  Plato.  In  these  Dionysius  shows  great  famil- 
iarity with  the  authors  treated,  and  in  most  respects  excel- 
lent judgment.  He  evidently  lacks  originality,  which  makes 
his  works  all  the  more  valuable  to  us,  as  they  have  preserved 
for  us  the  teachings  of  the  learned  schools  of  Alexandria 
and  Pergamum,  rather  than  the  independent  opinion  of  one 
man.    He  opposes  the  practises  of  the  Asian  school  of  rhet- 


410  GREEK  LITERATURE 

oric,  and  goes  back  to  the  Attic  writers  for  models  of  style. 
He  evidently  exercised  great  influence,  and  his  influence 
seems  on  the  whole  to  have  been  for  the  good  of  the  litera- 
ture of  his  times.  Another  writer  on  rhetoric  was  Caecilius 
of  Calacte,  a  pupil  of  the  Pergamene  rhetor  Apollodorus. 
His  works,  which  encouraged  the  pursuit  of  rhetoric  at 
The  treatise  Rome  and  the  study  of  the  Attic  orators,  have 
On  the  disappeared.     An  important  rhetorical  work, 

Sublime.  which  probably  belongs  to  this  period,  is  the 

treatise  On  the  Sublime,  falsely,  attributed  to  Longinus. 
This  is  a  critical  work,  full  of  examples  drawn  from  the 
authors  treated,  and  showing  sound  critical  judgment  and 
good  literary  taste. 

Strabo  of  Amasea,  in  Pontus,  who  lived  from  about  60 
b.  c.  to  about  20  A.  d.,  came  to  Eome  in  29  b.  c,  visiting 
Corinth  and  the  Cyclades  on  the  way,  went  in  24  b.  c.  to 
Egypt  and  up  the  Nile  to  Philae  with  the  expe- 
dition under  iElius  Gallus,  stayed  for  some  time 
at  Alexandria,  and  returned  to  Eome  in  20  b.  c.  His  other 
journeys,  which  were  extensive,  were  probably  undertaken 
after  this  time.  He  seems  to  have  lived  in  Asia  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Augustus. 

His  first  work,  published  not  many  years  after  his  arri- 
val in  Eome,  was  a  history  of  the  period  from  146  to  about 
27  b.  c,  a  continuation  of  the  history  of  Polybius.  In  this 
lost  work  he  tried  to  put  important  matters  in 
a  prominent  light,  not  to  furnish  mere  annals. 
The  same  desire  to  emphasize  what  is  important  is  evident 
in  his  Geography,  a  work  in  seventeen  books,  almost  entire- 
ly preserved,  and  of  great  importance.  Strabo  regards  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  as  the  centre  of  the  world,  as  it  was,  so 
far  as  the  Greeks  and  Eomans  were  concerned,  and  treats 
Italy,  Greece,  and  J±si&  Minor  in  more  detail  than  other 
regions.  He  intends  his  work  to  be  of  practical  value,  and 
gives  much  information  about  the  formation  of  the  differ- 
ent countries  and  the  crops  or  minerals  they  produce,  as 


FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  DOMITIAN  411 

well  as  about  the  peoples  and  their  customs.  He  relies 
not  merely  upon  his  own  observation  but  also  upon  the 
works  of  earlier  geographers,  and  in  his  treatment  of  some 
regions,  for  instance  India,  he  draws  all  his  information 
from  earlier  writers.  In  telling  of  the  peoples  of  the  various 
regions  and  cities  he  introduces  much  historical  informa- 
tion. Much  Homeric  criticism  is  also  introduced,  but 
this  is  not  so  out  of  place  as  it  seems  at  first  sight,  for  the 
earlier  geographers  had  regarded  the  Homeric  poems  as 
a  chief  source  of  geographical  knowledge,  and  Strabo  seeks 
to  derive  knowledge  from  all  available  sources.  Nor  does 
he  accept  without  criticism  the  statements  of  previous  geog- 
raphers, but  tries  conscientiously  to  learn  and  write  the 
truth.  Even  when  he  is  wrong  it  is  often  not  for  lack  of 
trying  to  be  right,  but  either  because  correct  information 
was  not  to  be  had  or  because  he  is  led  astray  by  the  desire  to 
be  exact  in  matters  where  exactness  was  not  attainable.  In 
general,  his  statements  are  based  upon  the  best  information 
accessible  at  that  time. 

As  a  work  of  literature  the  Geography  is  without  origi- 
nality except  in  the  general  treatment  of  the  subject.  The 
narrative  is  clear  but  dry ;  descriptions  are  brief  and  omit 

all  picturesque  elements.     The  style  is  rather 
i  erary  monotonous ;  it  is  merely  the  ordinary  prose 

of  the  time,  lacking  those  qualities  which  lend 
grace  and  interest.  In  short,  the  value  and  interest  of  the 
work  are  in  the  subject  treated,  not  the  manner  of  treat- 
ment. 

The  only  remaining  historian  of  this  period  whose  work 
is  of  any  literary  interest  is  the  Jew  Flavius  Josephus,  who 

was  born  at  Jerusalem  in  37  a.  d.  and  lived  at 

least  until  94  A.  d.  He  had  been  compelled 
against  his  will  to  take  part  in  the  Jewish  revolt  in  66  A.  d. 
and  to  fight  against  the  Eomans,  was  taken  prisoner,  and 
from  that  time  was  under  the  patronage  of  Vespasian, 
Titus,  and  Domitian.     His  last  years  were  spent  at  Eome, 


412  GREEK  LITERATURE 

but  the  date  of  his  death  is  unknown.     His  chief  work  is 
the  Jewish  War,  in  seven  books,  written  at  the  suggestion 

of  Vespasian,  and  containing  the  history  of  the 
e   ewis         war  ]3egUn  un(jer  Nero  and  finished  by  Titus 

with  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  70  a.  d.  The 
work  was  written  in  the  author's  native  language  and  trans- 
lated into  Greek  with  the  aid  of  skilled  assistants.  In 
this  Josephus  tells  for  the  most  part  what  he  had  himself 
seen  and  experienced.  At  first  an  officer  in  the  Jewish 
army  and  afterward  an  eye-witness  of  the  progress  of  the 
war,  he  had  ample  opportunity  to  know  his  subject.  He 
is,  however,  not  always  strictly  accurate,  partly  because  of 
his  desire  to  be  agreeable  to  his  imperial  protectors,  and 
partly  on  account  of  the  prejudices  in  which  he,  a  member 
of  a  priestly  Jewish  family,  had  been  brought  up.  Never- 
theless the  history  is  well  planned  and  is  rich  in  details 
relating  to  Jewish  customs  as  well  as  to  the  progress  of  the 
war.  Some  rhetorical  ornaments  detract  from  the  general 
effect  of  earnestness  and  sobriety,  but  do  not  seriously  affect 
the  value  of  the  work.  The  style  is  careful  and  correct. 
Evidently  the  translators  were  well  trained  rather  than 
talented.  A  much  longer  work  is  the  Jewish  Archaeology, 
in  twenty  books.  This  was  published  in  94  A.  d.  and  con- 
The  Jewish  tains  the  history  of  the  Jews  from  the  creation 
Archeology  to  the  year  66  A.  d.  The  first  part  is  derived 
and  other         entirely  from  the  Old  Testament  and  has  no 

independent  value.  The  last  seven  books,  con- 
taining the  history  of  Herod  the  Great  and  his  successors, 
are  of  great  historical  interest.  The  other  extant  works, 
such  as  the  egotistical  Life  of  Josephus  and  the  books 
Against  Apion,  who  had  made  charges  against  the  Jews, 
are  of  little  interest.  Josephus  wrote,  or  intended  to  write, 
several  works  on  philosophical  subjects,  but  of  these  noth- 
ing is  left. 

Philosophy  was  much  cultivated   in  the  first  century 
after  Christ,  but  little  philosophical  literature  was  produced. 


FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  DOMITIAN  413 

Even  before  this  time,  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  first 
century  b.  a,  there  was  a  revival  of  Pythagorean  doctrine. 
Philosophy  This  probably  began  at  Alexandria,  but  soon 
in  the  first  spread  to  Eome,  and  its  effect  is  seen  in  some 
century.  0f  Cicero's  writings.    Numerous  works  ascribed 

to  various  writers  were  current  besides  anonymous  collec- 
tions of  maxims  and  comparisons.  The  Golden  Verses 
attributed  to  Pythagoras  himself  belong  to  this  period. 
Various  fragments  are  preserved  from  writings  by  Sextius, 
of  the  time  of  Augustus  and  Tiberius ;  Sotion,  who  was 
one  of  Seneca's  teachers ;  Areius  Didymus,  who  wrote 
under .  Nero,  and  others.  The  best  known  Pythagorean 
writing  of  this  time  is  the  Tablet  of  Cedes,  a  short  alle- 
gorical composition  describing  an  imaginary  tablet  repre- 
senting the  life  of  man.  The  explanation  of  the  tablet 
consists  of  moral  teachings,  half  Pythagorean  and  half  Stoic. 
The  date  of  this  work  is  uncertain,  but  it  may  probably  be 
assigned  to  the  first  century  after  Christ.  Stoic  philosophy 
had  been  introduced  at  Rome  by  Pansetius  and  continued  to 
be  taught  there  by  many  famous  teachers.  They  were,  how- 
ever, for  the  most  part  lecturers  rather  than  writers.  Lu- 
cius Annaeus  Cornutus,  who  was  banished  from  Rome  by 
Nero,  left  a  work  on  Greek  Theology,  based  upon  earlier 
Stoic  works  and  containing  allegorical  and  etymological 
explanations  of  myths,  and  the  lectures  of  Gaius  Musonius 
Rufus,  who  was  banished  at  the  same  time,  were  writ- 
ten down  by  a  pupil  and  are  partially  preserved  in  the 
Florilegium  of  Stobaeus.  Fragments  of  writings  by  Muso- 
nius are  preserved  by  other  writers  also.  He  taught  the 
moral  doctrines  of  the  Stoics,  with  little  attention  to  their 
physical  theories.  Cornutus  is  perhaps  best  known  as  the 
teacher  of  the  satirist  Persius,  and  Musonius  as  the  teacher 
of  Epictetus. 

But  the  only  philosopher  of  literary  importance  in  this 
time  is  Philo,  an  Alexandrian  Jew,  born  about  20  b.  c.  In 
39  A.  d.  he  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Rome  to  plead  the 


414  GREEK  LITERATURE 

cause  of  the  Jews  before  Caligula ;  but  the  rest  of  his  life, 
the  duration  of  which  is  unknown,  was  spent  in  quiet  at 
Alexandria.  His  numerous  writings,  most  of  which  are 
preserved,  are  philosophical  and  religious.  He 
is  a  devout  Jew,  with  firm  faith  in  the  Bible,  but 
he  interprets  its  words  allegorically,  with  the  result  that  he 
finds  in  the  Bible  the  doctrines  of  Plato  with  modifications 
tending  toward  mysticism.  The  cardinal  point  of  his  teach- 
ing is  the  doctrine  of  the  Word  (Logos).  He  believes  in 
a  God  far  removed  from  all  material  existence;  and  an 
emanation  from  God,  the  Word;  which  is  the  means  of 
communication  between  God  and  his  creatures.  The 
moral  teaching  which  Philo  adds  to  this  theological  doc- 
trine is  in  the  main  Stoic,  but  is  full  of  mystic  enthusiasm. 
Certain  passages  relating  to  the  grace  of  God  and  the 
lofty  aspirations  of  the  human  soul  seem  almost  Christian. 
Philo's  style  is  easy,  fluent,  and  even  graceful.  He  imitates 
Plato  to  some  extent  in  style  as  well  as  in  doctrine,  but 
lacks  Plato's  wonderful  dramatic  ability. 

Little  poetry  of  any  interest  was  written  in  Greek  at 
this  time.     Some   epigrams  are  graceful  and 
attractive,  but  there  is  no  poet  whose  name 
we  need  remember. 


CHAPTEE  XXXVIII 

PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

Revival  of  Greek  literature  in  the  second  and  third  centuries — 
The  new  philosophical  tendency — Epictetus,  about  50  to  about  120  a.  d. 
— Dio  Chrysostom,  about  40  to  after  112  a.  d. — Plutarch,  before  50  to 
about  125  a.  d. — Plutarch's  life  and  character — The  parallel  lives — Plu- 
tarch's morals — His  style — Marcus  Aurelius,  121-180  a.  d. 

Dubing  the  second  and  third  centuries  after  Christ 
there  was  a  marked  revival  of  Greek  literature,  caused  in 
part  at  least  by  the  established  peace  of  the 
®rev£va  Eoman  Empire  and  aided  by  the  favor  and 
literature  in  support  of  the  emperors  and  other  great  men 
the  second  of  Rome.  In  the  Alexandrian  period  and  the 
and  third  firgt  part  of  the  Roman  period  Greek  litera- 
centuries.  pi 

ture  was  for  the  most  part  either  learned  or 

imitative,  with  little  creative  originality.  In  the  period 
from  Nerva  to  Constantine  there  is  more  originality, 
though  there  is  also  much  imitation  of  the  classics.  One 
difference  between  the  earlier  authors  and  the  writers  of 
this  Roman  time  is  important.  The  great  classic  authors 
wrote  for  the  limited  public  of  some  one  independent 
Greek  city,  and  the  Alexandrians  for  a  limited  public  of 
learned  Greeks  in  different  cities;  but  the  writers  of  the 
second  and  third  centuries  after  Christ  write  for  Romans 
as  well  as  for  Greeks,  and  appeal  to  their  readers  as  men — 
not  as  scholars.  All  men  of  the  civilized  world  were  now 
alike  subjects  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  this  community 
of  political  station  helped  to  do  away  with  previous  divi- 

415 


416  GREEK  LITERATURE 

sions  and  give  men  a  broader  view  of  the  substantial 
brotherhood  of  men.  So  there  is  a  new  spirit  in  literature. 
Old  models  are  still  imitated,  but  in  a  new  way.  The 
period  really  begins  before  the  end  of  the  first  century, 
and  is  so  long  that  it  will  be  best  to  take  up  the  different 
authors  not  in  chronological  order  nor  strictly  according 
to  their  subjects,  but  rather  in  groups,  to  avoid  too  great 
confusion. 

Philosophy  was,  as  we  have  seen,  chiefly  concerned  with 
ethics,  even  from  the  time  of  Plato,  and  this  interest  in 
Newphilo-  tne  moral  teachings  of  philosophy  continued 
sophical  throughout  the  Alexandrian  and  Eoman  peri- 

teaching.  0(js#     The  philosophers  of  the  first  part  of  the 

Eoman  period  were  moral  teachers,  and  this  is  still  their 
character  in  the  time  with  which  we  are  now  concerned. 
But  the  new  spirit  of  humanity  is  especially  noticeable  in 
the  new  philosophical  teaching. 

The  first  of  the  great  moralists  of  this  time  is  Epictetus. 
He  was  born  a  slave  at  Hieropolis,  in  Phrygia,  about  50  A.  d., 
and  was  taken  to  Eome.  There  his  master, 
Epaphroditus,  caused  him  to  be  educated  and 
gave  him  his  freedom.  His  teacher  in  philosophy  was 
Musonius  Eufus.  In  94  A.  d.  Epictetus  was  expelled  from 
Italy  with  the  other  philosophers  by  Domitian,  and  went  to 
Mcopolis,  in  Epirus,  where  a  great  number  of  enthusiastic 
pupils  gathered  about  him.  His  life  seems  to  have  lasted 
at  least  until  the  accession  of  Hadrian  in  117  A.  d.  ;  perhaps 
until  125.  One  of  his  pupils  was  the  historian  jVrrian,  who 
took  down  in  writing  the  words  of  the  master ;  for  Epic- 
tetus, like  Socrates,  wrote  nothing.  Arrian  afterward 
made  an  abbreviated  edition  of  his  record,  which  he  called 
a  Manual.  Both  the  Conversations  of  Epictetus  and  the 
Manual  of  Epictetus  have  come  down  to  us.  The  teaching 
is  moral,  founded  on  the  doctrines  of  the  Stoics  which 
made  self-restraint  the  source  of  all  virtue.  His  chief  rule 
of  conduct  was  "  endure  and  refrain."     But  he  gave  new 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY  417 

life  to  the  Stoic  doctrines  by  his  sense  of  the  brotherhood 
of  mankind,  and  his  ethical  teachings  were  closely  con- 
nected with  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  an  all-wise  and 
loving  God,  to  whom  the  soul  of  man  is  nearly  related. 
Epictetus  was  evidently  an  interesting  personality.  He 
taught  his  beliefs  without  any  attempt  to  soften  them  or 
make  them  agreeable  to  his  hearers,  and  sometimes  his 
expressions  seem  too  positive  and  even  harsh.  Neverthe- 
less, the  moral  force  which  he  shows  has  been  a  source  of 
inspiration  to  many  a  reader,  and  must  have  impressed 
still  more  strongly  those  who  heard  and  knew  the  man 
himself. 

A  very  different  teacher  of  nearly  the  same  moral  doc- 
trine is  Dio  of  Prusa,  in  Bithynia,  called  Dio  Chrysostom 
(the  Golden-mouthed)  by  his  admirers  on  ac- 

5j!  count   of   his    eloquence.     Born   of  a  distin- 

Chrysostom.  - 

guished  family  at  Prusa,  about  40  A.  d.,  he 
devoted  himself  to  rhetoric,  which  was  growing  fashion- 
able in  his  youth,  and  soon  became  a  much-admired  rhetor 
or  sophist,  as  public  lecturers  were  called  at  that  time. 
Under  Vespasian  he  was  called  to  Rome,  but  was  banished 
from  Italy  and  Bithynia  by  Domitian.  This  was  a  hard 
blow.  The  fact  that  he  was  suspected  and  banished  by  the 
emperor  probably  put  a  stop  to  his  success  as  a  public 
speaker,  and  therewith  to  a  great  part  of  his  income.  In 
comparative  poverty  he  wandered  for  fourteen  years  in 
Greece  and  elsewhere,  going  as  far  as  Olbia,  on  the  Black 
Sea.  During  this  period  he,  who  had  previously  attacked 
the  philosophers  in  public  speeches,  now  became  himself  a 
philosopher ;  and  when  he  once  more  returned  to  his  native 
Prusa,  in  96  A.  d.,  after  the  death  of  Domitian,  he  taught 
the  moral  doctrines  of  the  Stoics,  somewhat  modified  by 
those  of  the  Peripatetics,  Academicians,  and  Pythagoreans 
— that  is,  the  serious  moral  doctrines  in  vogue  among  the 
teachers  of  the  time.  He  taught  not  only  at  Prusa,  but  in 
other  cities — even  at  Rome,  where  he  lectured  before  the 


418  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Emperor  Trajan.  How  long  he  lived  is  unknown,  but  he 
was  certainly  alive  in  112  A.  D. 

Dio's  writings  were  many.  His  History  of  the  Getce  and 
his  Letters  are  lost,  as  are  many  of  his  orations ;  but  eighty 

,  orations  are  still  preserved,  though  some  are 

incomplete.  These  fall  naturally  into  three 
divisions :  Sophistic  Addresses,  Political  Speeches ,  and  Moral 
Lectures.  The  first  class  deals  with  trivial  subjects,  for  in- 
stance, an  argument  to  prove  That  Troy  tvas  not  Taken,  or 
literary  matters,  for  example,  On  Homer,  and  belongs  with- 
out doubt  to  Dio's  earlier  years;  the  second  consists  of 
addresses  to  various  Greek  cities,  urging  them  to  put  away 
their  petty  rivalries  and  to  institute  various  reforms ;  the 
third  contains  Dio's  moral  teachings.  These  and  the  sec- 
ond class  belong  to  the  time  after  his  banishment.  The 
political  orations  are  interesting  for  the  light  they  throw 
upon  the  circumstances  of  the  Greek  communities  of  the 
time,  but  the  real  originality  of  the  author  is  best  seen  in 
the  moral  lectures.  In  these  he  popularizes  the  moral 
teachings  of  the  philosophers,  setting  forth  their  doctrines 
with  all  the  power  of  earnest  conviction,  aided  by  remark- 
able command  of  language  and  wide  reading  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  past.  Like  the  sophists  of  the  time,  he  traveled 
from  city  to  city,  lecturing  in  public  halls  and  theatres, 
attracting  the  people  by  his  eloquence.  Unlike  the  soph- 
ists, he  felt  that  he  had  a  mission,  and  his  eloquence  had 
the  ring  of  sincerity.  His  style  is  easy,  graceful,  and  pleas- 
ing, with  not  a  little  fancy  and  humor.  It  is  the  best  man- 
ner of  the  sophists  of  the  time,  varied  and  made  more  im- 
pressive by  the  real  earnestness,  serious  purpose,  and  lofty 
enthusiasm  underlying  it. 

Probably  no  single  Greek  author  has  exercised  a  greater 
influence  upon  later  times  than  Plutarch.  He  was  born  in 
the  little  town  of  Chaeronea,  in  Boeotia,  probably  somewhat 
before  50  A.  d.  His  father  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  culture, 
belonging  to  a  much-respected  family.    The  young  Plutarch 


PHILOSOPHY   IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY  419 

therefore  had  a  good  education  at  home,  and  when  he 
reached  the  proper  age  was  sent  to  Athens,  where  he  studied 
Plutarch.  under  Ammonius,  a  teacher  belonging  to  the 

His  educa-  Platonic  school.  How  long  he  was  at  Athens 
tion.  we  (j0  not  know?  but  the  teachings  of  Ammo- 

nius seem  to  have  had  a  lasting  influence  upon  him,  for 
he  remained  through  life  a  Platonist.  Like  the  other  Pla- 
tonists,  or  Academicians,  of  his  time,  he  was  an  eclectic, 
taking  from  the  teachings  of  different  schools  of  philoso- 
phy what  seemed  to  him  reasonable ;  but  at  the  same  time 
he  regarded  himself  as  a  follower  of  Plato,  and  liked  to 
support  his  views  by  arguments  drawn  from  Plato's  works. 
These  works  he  studied  with  great  diligence,  as  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  he  wrote  several  treatises  on  points  of 
Plato's  doctrine. 

On  his  return  from  Athens  Plutarch  soon  became  a 
prominent  man  at  Chaeronea,  for  he  was  still  young  when 
H.  .  .     he  was  sent  as  a  delegate  to  address  the  pro- 

his  marriage;  consul.  He  traveled  in  various  regions  at  dif- 
death  of  his  f  erent  times,  going  once  to  Alexandria,  twice 
daughter.  ^  jeas^  though  probably  not  until  compara- 
tively late  in  life,  to  Eome,  and  perhaps  also  to  Sardis,  in 
Asia  Minor.  He  married  Timoxena,  the  daughter  of  a 
man  of  some  local  importance,  and  had  four  sons  and  a 
daughter.  Two  sons,  apparently  the  eldest  and  the  young- 
est, died  while  mere  boys,  and  the  daughter  died  at  two 
years  of  age.  At  the  time  of  her  death  Plutarch  was  away 
from  home,  and  first  heard  of  his  loss  at  Tanagra.  There- 
upon he  wrote  his  wife  a  kind  and  affectionate  letter,  call- 
ing to  mind  the  lovable  qualities  of  the  dead  child,  and 
urging  his  wife  to  preserve  the  dignity  and  moderation  in 
her  grief  which  had  characterized  her  in  other  circum- 
stances, reminding  her  that  she  was  even  now  better  off 
than  if  the  child  had  not  been  born,  for  she  had  at  least 
the  pleasure  of  sweet  memories.  He  adds  that  the  soul 
does  not  die,  but  is  set  free  from  the  body  by  what  we  call 


420  GREEK  LITERATURE 

death.  If,  however,  the  soul  has,  during  its  earthly  life, 
become  too  much  interested  in  the  things  of  the  body,  it 
will  not  remain  free,  but  will  enter  a  body  again,  as  a  bird, 
though  set  free,  returns  to  its  cage.  This  idea  is  in  part 
derived  from  Plato,  but  some  of  the  details  may  belong  to 
the  doctrines  of  the  mysteries  of  Dionysus,  into  which  Plu- 
tarch and  his  wife  were  initiated. 

Plutarch  was  a  pious  and  religious  man.     He  was  a 
priest  and    agonothetes    (manager    of    sacred   games)   at 

Delphi,  and  was  also  connected  in  some  way 

with  the  Delphic  oracle.  He  was  a  firm  be- 
liever in  oracles  and  other  forms  of  divination,  and  wrote  a 
treatise  on  the  question  Why  the  Oracles  Cease  to  Give  An- 
swers,  and  another  on  the  question  Wherefore  the  Pythian 
Priestess  now  Ceases  to  Deliver  her  Oracles  in  Verse,  both 
of  which  are  interesting  for  the  light  they  throw  upon  the 
condition  of  the  oracles  in  the  first  century  after  Christ,  as 
well  as  on  account  of  the  interest  attaching  to  Plutarch's 
opinions.  His  views  concerning  a  supreme  God,  a  number 
of  lesser  deities,  and  a  greater  number  of  inferior  spirits  or 
demons,  are  only  in  part  peculiar  to  him,  and  were  shared 
by  other  followers  of  the  Platonic  school. 

The  greater  part  of  his  life  Plutarch  spent  at  Chaeronea, 
a  kindly,  genial,  and  much-respected   citizen.      He  held 

various  town  offices,  was  apparently  Boeotarch, 
His  offices;  and  we  are  eyen  told  that  Trajan  conferre(j 
his  death.  • 

upon  him  consular  rank.     Thus  he  grew  old 

in  well-deserved  honor.     He  died  not  far  from  125  a.  d. 

Plutarch  was  not  a  great  genius.     He  was  a  wealthy 
country  gentleman,  with  a  conscientious  desire  to  do  his 

duty  in  the  world,  a  profound  respect  and 
character         hearty  admiration   for    the  great   Greeks   of 

earlier  times,  though  quite  contented  to  live 
under  the  rule  of  Rome.  He  felt  that  educated  and  wealthy 
men  like  himself  ought  not  to  withdraw  from  public  life, 
and  so  he  accepted  offices  in  his  native  town — a  town  so 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY  421 

small  that  he  did  not  wish  to  leave  it  "  lest  it  become  still 
smaller."  When  he  was  at  Rome  he  lectured  on  various  ' 
ethical  topics,  and  some  of  his  published  treatises  are 
doubtless  little  more  than  fair  copies  of  his  lectures.  Be- 
sides lecturing,  he  also  gave  private  advice  on  matters  of 
daily  conduct.  People  consulted  him  about  their  conscien- 
tious doubts  much  as  one  consults  a  physician  about  a 
physical  malady.  He  was  probably  consulted  in  the  same 
way  at  Chaeronea,  though  by  fewer  patients.  In  that  small 
town  he  had  ample  leisure  for  writing. 

He  is  best  known  as  the  author  of  Parallel  Lives  of 
Greeks  and  Romans.     Forty-six  of  these  Lives  have  come 
down  to  us.     They  are  arranged  in  pairs,  one 
Parallel  Greek  and  one  Roman,  and  each  pair  of  lives 

is.  followed  by  a  comparison  of  the  two  char- 
acters. In  addition  to  these  there  are  four  detached  Lives 
— of  Artaxerxes,  Aratus,  Galba,  and  Otho.  In  these  biogra- 
phies Plutarch  shows  great  diligence  in  reading  the  works 
of  previous  authors,  but  little  or  no  original  research  and 
little  historical  insight.  He  loves  anecdotes,  and  takes 
them  where  he  finds  them,  with  not  quite  enough  regard 
for  the  trustworthiness  of  his  authority.  He  wishes,  too, 
to  make  biography  point  a  moral ;  and  perhaps  cares  less 
for  historical  accuracy  than  for  ethical  teaching.  Never- 
theless, the  biographies  are  full  of  valuable  historical  infor- 
mation, for  Plutarch  could  draw  from  all  the  historians 
whose  works  are  now  lost,  and  they  are  interesting  besides. 
Plutarch's  other  works  are  miscellaneous  essays  and 
treatises,  popularly  known  as  Plutarch's  Morals,  though 
not  by  any  means  all  of  them  are  directly  con- 
cerned with  morality.  A  selection  from  the 
titles  of  these  essays  gives  some  idea  of  the  scope  of  his 
interests:  A  Discourse  Concerning  the  Training  of  Chil- 
dren, Concerning  the  Cure  of  Anger,  Of  Bashfulness,  Of  f 
Superstition  or  Indiscreet  Devotion,  Concerning  the  Virtues 
of  Women,  How  a  Young  Man  ought  to  Hear  Poems,  That 


422  GREEK  LITERATURE 

it  is  not  Possible  to  Live  Pleasurably  According  to  the  Doc- 
trine of  Epicurus,  Of  Brotherly  Love,  Symposiacs  (table- 
talk  on  various  subjects),  Concerning  such  whom  God  is 
Slow  to  Punish,  Whether  an  Old  Man  Ought  to  Meddle  in 
State  Affairs.  It  is  evident  from  these  titles — and  these 
are  but  a  few  taken  from  the  long  list  of  essays — that  Plu- 
tarch's interests  were  varied.  They  were,  however,  chiefly 
ethical. and  antiquarian. 

Plutarch's  style  is  much  the  same  in  the  Lives  and  the 
Morals,  though  some  of  the  essays  among  the  Morals  are 
less  carefully  written  than  others  or  than  the 
utarc  s  Lives.  He  writes  in  an  easy,  unaffected,  sim- 
ple fashion,  making  his  meaning  clear  without 
apparent  effort.  Not  only  is  he  fond  of  anecdotes,  but  he 
loves  also  to  embellish  his  essays  with  quotations  from  the 
poets.  These  quotations  are  more  numerous  in  the  Morals 
than  in  the  Lives,  and  seem  to  have  been  taken,  at  least  in 
the  Morals,  chiefly  from  a  book  or  books  of  extracts,  rather 
than  directly  from  the  early  poets.  Yet  it  is  evident  that 
Plutarch  was  widely  read  in  Greek  literature.  The  great 
influence  which  Plutarch  has  exercised  is  due  not  to  any 
deep  historical  research  or  original  philosophical  specula- 
tion, but  to  the  interesting  way  in  which  he  brings  before 
us  the  great  men  of  Greece  and  Eome  and  the  views  on 
ethical  matters  held  by  educated  men  about  the  end  of  the 
first  century  after  Christ. 

The  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  must  be  briefly  men- 
tioned in  our  account  of  philosophical  writing  during  this 
time.  The  details  of  his  life  are  to  be  found 
Marcus  in         history  of  Eome.     Born  at  Eome  in  121 

Aurslius 

A.  D.,  he  was  adopted  by  Antoninus  Pius  in 
138,  and  after  the  death  of  Antoninus  Pius  was  emperor 
from  161  to  180.  He  was  taught  by  the  best  teachers  in 
rhetoric  and  philosophy,  and  was  especially  attracted  by 
the  latter  study.  His  Letters,  written  in  Latin,  do  not 
concern  us  here,  nor  are  they  so  important  as  his  Thoughts, 


PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY  423 

a  series  of  rules  for  conduct,  ethical  maxims,  and  moral 
reflections  written^  in  Greek  by  the  emperor  in  the  midst 
of  his  cares  and  anxieties  to  comfort,  encourage,  and 
strengthen  himself.  The  doctrines  are  purely  Stoic ;  but 
the  Stoicism  of  Marcus  Aurelius  is,  like  that  of  Epictetus, 
more  a  religion  than  a  theory.  The  little  volume  (divided 
in  our  editions  into  twelve  short  books)  is  full  of  a  simple 
faith  in  the  good  government  of  the  world.  It  reveals  to 
us  a  good  man  who  appreciates  all  the  benefits  he  has 
received,  is  free  from  vanity  and  all  uncharitableness, 
severe  only  to  himself.  The  moral  doctrines  of  Stoicism 
resemble  those  of  Christianity,  and  the  Stoic's  belief  in 
Providence  has  something  of  the  character  of  Christian 
faith.  Nowhere  do  these  qualities  of  Stoicism  appear  so 
clearly  as  in  the  Thoughts  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  This  little 
book  has  been  a  source  of  spiritual  strength  and  comfort  to 
pagans  and  Christians  alike.  It  is  written  with  no  care  for 
stylistic  excellence,  but  the  sincerity  of  feeling  and  grand 
simplicity  of  thought  give  to  the  style  a  peculiar  energy 
and  vigor. 


28 


CHAPTEE   XXXIX 

HISTORY-THE    LATER    SOPHISTS 

History — Arrian,  about  95  to  about  .175  a.  d. — Appian,  about  95  to 
about  175  a.  d. — Dio  Cassius,  about  155  to  about  240  a.  d. — Herodian, 
between  165  and  255  a.  d. — Various  writers — Pausanias,  before  130  to 
at  least  175  a.  d. — Diogenes  Laertius,  probably  about  225  a.  d.— The 
Library  attributed  to  Apollodorus — Polyaenus,  about  150  a.  d. — Antoni- 
nus Liberalis,  about  150  a.  d. — Oratory — The  later  Sophists — Maxi- 
mus  Tyrius,  about  185  a.  i). — iElius  Aristides,  129-189  a.  d. — Lucian, 
about  120  to  about  190  a.  d. — Lucian's  works — His  style  and  manner  of 
writing — Alciphron,  probably  about  175  a.  d. — Philostratus  I,  about 
200  a.  d.— Philostratus  II,  about  230  a.  d.— Philostratus  III,  about  290 
A.  d. — JElian,  about  230  a.  d. — Athenaeus,  born  between  161  and  180  a.  d. 

Among  the  historians  who  wrote  in  the  second  and 
third  centuries  after  Christ,  only  a  few  require  even  brief 
mention.  The  first  of  these  is  Arrian  (Flavius 
Arrianus)  from  Nicomedia,  in  Bithynia.  His 
life  extends  approximately  from  95  to  175  A.  d.  As  a 
young  man  he  was  an  admiring  pupil  of  Epictetus,  whose 
conversations  he  published  (see  page  416).  He  held  sev- 
eral public  offices,  was  consul  suffectus  under  Hadrian  in 
the  year  130,  and  for  six  years  (131-137)  was  governor  of 
Cappadocia  as  legatus  Augusti  pro  prmtore.  He  after- 
ward retired  from  public  life  and  lived  at^  Athens,  which 
was  at  that  time  no  longer  a  great  centre  of  active  life,  but 
a  seat  of  learning.  Here  he  was  archon  in  147  A.  D.,  and 
somewhat  later  one  of  the  prytanes.  He  loved  to  be  lik- 
ened to  Xenophon  and  to  be  called  a  second  Xenophon. 
He  had  attached  himself  to  Epictetus  as  Xenophon  did  to 
424 


HISTORIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  425 

Socrates,  had  then  engaged  in  active  military  life,  and  had 
finally  retired  to  a  life  of  literary  leisure.  His  chief  work, 
the  Anabasis  of  Alexander,  derives  its  name  from  Xeno- 
phon's  Anabasis,  which  it  imitates  in  style  and  in  the 
number  (seven)  of  books.  It  contains  a  history  of  Alexan- 
der the  Great  from  the  beginning  of  his  reign  to  his  death, 
not  merely  an  account  of  his  expedition  against  the  Per- 
sians. It  is  written  in  a  simple,  pleasant  style,  like  that  of 
Xenophon.  It  is  not  a  profound  work  based  on  new  re- 
searches, but  gives  in  readable  form  the  substance  of  the 
more  reasonable  earlier  histories  of  Alexander,  especially 
those  of  Ptolemy  and  Aristobulus.  Arrian  wrote  several 
other  historical  works  :  a  History  of  the  Successors  of 
A  lexander,  in  ten  books  ;  a  History  of  Bithynia,  in  eight 
books  ;  and  a  History  of  the  Parthian  War  under  Hadrian, 
in  seventeen  books,  all  of  which  are  lost.  A  small  part  of 
his  History  of  the  Alans  (a  Scythian  tribe)  is  preserved,  as 
are  a  geographical  work  on  India,  a  Periplus  of  the  Black 
Sea,  a  treatise  On  Tactics,  and  one  On  Hunting.  The 
Periplus  of  the  Red  Sea  ascribed  to  Arrian  is  by  a  later 
writer.  Arrian 's  other  works  seem  to  have  been  of  little 
importance. 

A  contemporary  of  Arrian  is  Appian,  of  whose  life  we 
know  but  little  except  that  he  was  born  at  Alexandria, 
became  prominent  there,  and  went  to  Kome, 
where  he  occupied  an  official  position  under 
Hadrian  and  Antoninus,  who  made  him  procurator.  His 
whole  life  probably  lies  between  95  and  175  a.  d.  The 
autobiography  which  he  wrote  is  lost.  His  one  great  work 
was  a  History  of  Rome  in  twenty-four  books.  The  arrange- 
ment was  not  strictly  chronological,  but  by  topics.  The 
story  of  the  relations  of  Eome  with  each  foreign  people 
was  told  by  itself,  and  the  internal  affairs  of  Eome  were 
treated  separately.  The  arrangement  of  the  topics  was,  on 
the  whole,  chronological  ;  for  instance,  the  Samnite  wars 
(Book  III)  came  before  the  wars  with*the  Gauls  (Book  IV) 


426  GREEK  LITERATURE 

or  the  conquest  of  Sicily  (Book  V) ;  but  the  method  of 
division,  which  in  the  hands  of  a  great  historian  might  be 
satisfactory,  is  in  Appian's  hands  a  source  of  confusion.  Of 
the  entire  work  only  Books  VI,  VII,  and  VIII  (the  wars  in 
Spain,  the  second  Punic  War,  and  the  wars  in  Africa)  and 
Books  XI  to  XVII  (the  wars  with  the  Syrians,  Parthians, 
and  Mithridates,  and  the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars)  are 
preserved,  in  addition  to  scattered  fragments.  Appian's 
work  is  important  on  account  of  its  contents,  for  he  follows 
some  authorities  whose  works  are  lost,  and  furnishes  us 
valuable  information,  but  as  a  work  of  literature  it  is  infe- 
rior to  Arrian's  writings.  Still,  his  style  is  simple  and  un- 
affected, and  though  it  lacks  vigor  and  variety  is  not  dry 
nor  dull. 

Dio  Cassius  (Cassius  Dio  Cocceianus)  was,  like  Arrian 
and  Dio  Chrysostom,  his  grandfather  on  the  mother's  side, 
.  a  Bithynian.     His  father  was  a  distinguished 

man,  governor  of  Dalmatia  and  Cilicia  under 
Marcus  Aurelius.  Dio  was  born  at  Nicsea,  in  Bithynia, 
about  155  a.  d.  In  180  he  went  to  Eome,  where  he  became 
praetor  in  193.  In  218,  under  Macrinus,  he  was  sent  to 
regulate  the  affairs  of  Pergamum  and  other  parts  of  Asia 
Minor.  Under  Alexander  Severus  he  was  consul  and  gov- 
ernor of  Africa,  about  224 ;  afterward  governor  of  Dalmatia 
and  Upper  Pannonia.  In  229  he  was  consul  for  the  second 
time,  soon  after  which  he  withdrew  to  Bithynia.  His  death 
occurred  probably  before  240  A.  d. 

Dio  was  an  able,  energetic  man,  well  acquainted  with 
the  conduct  of  affairs  of  state.  Thus  prepared,  he  under- 
took to  write  the  History  of  Rome,  For  ten  years  (200- 
210)  he  collected  his  materials,  and  in  the  next  twelve  (211- 
223)  he  finished  the  first  seventy-two  books,  to  the  death 
of  Septimius  Severus  (211  A.  d.).  The  remaining  eight 
books  were  written  later,  and  were  more  summary  in  their 
treatment.  The  whole  work,  in  eighty  books,  extended 
from  the  time  of  iEneas  to  Dio's  second  consulship  in  229 


HISTORIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  427 

A.  d.  Twenty-five  books  (XXXVI  to  LX)  are  extant,  cover- 
ing the  period  from  68  B.  c.  to  47  A.  d.  Fragments  of  the 
other  books  exist,  and  their  contents  are  known  from  an  ab- 
stract made  by  the  monk  Xiphilinus  in  the  eleventh  century. 
The  history  of  Zonaras,  written  in  the  twelfth  century,  also 
contains  much  that  is  taken  from  Dio  Cassius. 

Dio  used  the  works  of  his  predecessors,  both  Latin  and 
Greek,  with  care  and  diligence,  but  he  did  not  investigate 
for  himself  the  original  documents.  He  tried  to  be  accu- 
rate in  his  chronology  and  geography,  and  to  be  free  from 
prejudice.  In  the  last-mentioned  attempt  he  was  not  alto- 
gether successful.  His  mind  does  not  seem  to  be  broad 
enough  to  grasp  the  causes  of  great  events  or  the  char- 
acters of  great  men.  Yet  with  all  his  defects  he  produced 
a  history  which  is  on  the  whole  reasonably  accurate.  His 
style  is  clear,  pure,  though  not  strictly  Attic,-  and  simple ; 
somewhat  monotonous,  and  lacking  in  vigor,  but  dignified 
and  euphonious. 

Herodian,  author  of  a  History  of  the  Empire  after  Marcus 
Aurelius,  lived  in  Italy  and  occupied  some  public  offices, 
but  we  do  not  know  what  they  were.  His  life 
falls  between  the  years  165  and  255  a.  d.,  but  we 
know  neither  date  nor  place  of  his  birth  and  death.  His 
history  covers  fifty-nine  years,  from  the  death  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  to  the  accession  of  Gordianus  III  (180-228 
A.  d.).  His  interest  is  chiefly  in  the  persons  and  acts  of 
the  emperors,  their  characters  and  opinions,  and  the  char- 
acters and  opinions  of  their  advisers.  He  relies  for  his 
information  less  upon  previous  writers  than  upon  his  own 
recollections,  and  for  this  reason  his  work  is  more  interest- 
ing than  that  of  Dio.  His  accuracy  is  sometimes  doubtful, 
but  he  is  our  chief  authority  for  the  history  of  an  impor- 
tant and  agitated  period,  and  is  therefore  of  some  impor- 
tance. His  style  is  less  monotonous  than  Dio's,  but  some- 
what artificial  and  rhetorical. 

Several  authors  belong  to  this  time  whose  works  are 


428  GREEK  LITERATURE 

without  literary  merit,  but  are  important   on  account  of 

their  contents.     Among  these  is  Pausanias.     He  was  born 

probably  at  Magnesia,  near  Mount  Sipylus,  in  Asia  Minor, 

at  some  time  before  130  A.  D.,  and  lived  at  least 

Pausjuiicis. 

until  175.  His  Guide  to  Greece,  in  ten  books, 
was  written  apparently  between  143  and  175  A.  d.  Pau- 
sanias traveled  about  Greece,  visited  the  most  interesting 
places,  and  described  the  monuments  which  seemed  to  him 
most  worthy  of  description.  He  gives  a  great  deal  of  his- 
torical and  mythological  information,  which  he  derives  for 
the  most  part  from  previous  writers.  In  all  probability  he 
consulted  previous  writers  for  many  of  his  statements  about 
works  of  art,  even  when  he  had  himself  seen  the  works  in 
question.  His  Guide,  though  written  in  a  loose,  awkward, 
and  even  intentionally  obscure  style,  is  of  immense  value  to 
students  of  antiquity,  being  a  description  of  Greece  in  the 
second  century  after  Christ,  written  by  a  man  whose  chief 
interest  was  in  the  monuments  of  earlier  times,  many  of 
which  were  still  to  be  seen. 

Another  important  work  is  the  collection  of  Lives  of  the 
Philosophers,  by  Diogenes  of  Laerte  (Diogenes  Laertius),  a 

man  of  whose  life  we  know  nothing,  but  who 

logenes  seems  to  have  lived  in  the  early  part  of  the 

Laertius.  J    *■ 

third  century  after  Christ.  He  wrote  sketches 
of  the  lives  of  all  the  leading  philosophers  of  the  various 
sects,  enlivening  the  brief  biographies  with  anecdotes,  and 
adding  a  list  of  the  works  of  each  philosopher.  The  book 
is  entirely  devoid  of  literary  merit,  is  written  without  due 
care  for  chronology  or  any  kind  of  accuracy,  but  is,  not- 
withstanding, indispensable,  since  it  is  our  chief  source  of 
The  Library  information  concerning  the  lives  and  works  of 
of  Apollo-        the  Greek  philosophers. 

doms.  rj^g  Library  (BiUiotheca)  of  Apollodorus, 

wrongly  ascribed  to  the  Apollodorus  of  the  second  century 
B.  c.  (see  page  404),  apparently  belongs  to  the  second  or 
third  century  after  Christ.     It  is  a  dry  compilation  of  gene- 


HISTORIANS  AND   LATER  SOPHISTS  429 

alogies  of  the  gods  and  heroes.  It  is  quite  unreadable,  but 
is  useful  for  reference,  and,  since  the  unknown  writer  de- 
rived his  information  from  earlier  literary  sources,  it  some- 
times sheds  a  ray  of  light  on  the  history  of  literature. 

The  Stratagems,  by  the  Macedonian  Polyaenus,  is  a  col- 
lection in  eight  books  of  stories  of  stratagems.    The  stories 
are  taken  from  history,  though  without  much 

Pol  v  SB  mis 

criticism  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  source 
from  which  one  or  another  is  derived,  and  therefore  give 
occasionally  some  useful  historical  information,  chiefly  on 
Greek  history,  as  the  author  seems  to  have 
Libera™8  known  comparatively  little  of  the  history  of 
Eome.  A  collection  of  tales  of  a  different 
kind  is  the  Metamorphoses,  by  an  unknown  writer,  Anto- 
ninus Liberalis. 

The  art  of  public  speaking  has  always  been  practised  by 
the  Greeks  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present ;  but  ora- 
tory has  not  always  taken  literary  form.  From 
the  fourth0111  ^ne  ^me  °^  Alexander  until  the  second  century 
century  B.  c.  after  Christ  there  were  pleas  in  lawsuits,  argu- 
to  the  second  ments  for  and  against  this  or  that  municipal 
Chii";7  after  improvement  or  foreign  policy,  public  addresses 
of  various  kinds ;  but  all  this  speaking  has  left 
hardly  a  trace  in  literature.  The  reason  probably  is  that 
the  important  questions  of  state  policy  were  settled  by  a 
few  great  rulers,  not  by  the  public  assemblies  of  independent 
cities,  and  orators  who  spoke  on  less  important  matters 
thought  it  hardly  worth  while  to  publish  their  speeches. 
Throughout  this  period  there  were  also  lectures  on  fanci- 
ful and  philosophical  subjects,  and  these  lectures  were  no 
doubt  composed  with  a  view  to  pleasing  the  audience  by 
their  eloquence  ;  but  these  have  disappeared,  and  their  loss 
is  not  to  be  regretted,  for  they  were  probably  products  of 
the  "  Asian  "  school  of  oratory,  full  of  rhetorical  ornaments 
but  empty  of  ideas. 

With  the  peace  of  the  Roman  Empire,  oratory  becomes 


430  GREEK  LITERATURE 

more  important  in  the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor.  These 
cities  were  wealthy,  with  a  large  number  of  men  of  leisure 
and  a  populace  fond  of  any  sort  of  entertainment.  They 
The  Sophists  possessed  freedom  of  local  self-government,  and 
of  the  Roman  were  jealous  one  of  another.  The  rhetorical 
period.  public  lecture  developed  in  these  cities  toward 

the  end  of  the  first  century  after  Christ,  and  along  with 
it  went  the  practise  of  elaborate  speaking  on  municipal 
and  public  matters.  There  was  serious  study  of  the  good 
rhetorical  traditions  of  earlier  times,  and  also  much  empty 
show  of  ornate  speech.  The  speakers  were  called  sophists, 
and  in  so  far  as  they  endeavored  to  charm  their  audi- 
ences by  their  words  on  general  topics  they  resembled  the 
sophists  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  Some  of  the  sophists 
of  the  second  and  third  centuries  after  Christ  had  great 
reputations.  They  spoke  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  often 
without  previous  preparation.  In  fact,  the  sophist  would 
sometimes  offer  to  speak  on  any  subject  suggested  by  his 
audience,  relying  upon  his  skillful  use  of  commonplaces  to 
hide  his  lack  of  thoughts.  The  study  of  the  works  of  ear- 
lier orators  might  sometimes  lead  to  serious  thought,  and 
did  lead  to  a  return  to  something  like  the  simplicity  of  the 
style  of  the  great  Attic  period,  yet  the  orations  of  the 
sophists  of  the  second  and  third  centuries  after  Christ  lack 
the  power  that  comes  from  earnestness,  and  the  reputations 
of  the  sophists  themselves  were  for  the  most  part  ephem- 
eral. Since  most  of  their  works  have  disappeared,  it  will 
not  be  necessary  to  mention  many  of  them,  but  they  were 
important  in  their  day,  when  rich  cities  supported  flourish- 
ing schools  of  oratory,  and  strove  to  attract  the  famous 
sophists,  and  emperors  founded  chairs  of  eloquence  and 
philosophy  for  them  to  occupy.  After  176jmt.  Athens  is 
almost  more  a  university  than  a  city,  thanks  to  the  endow- 
ment of  professorships  by  Marcus  Aurelius.  The  second 
century  is  the  time  when  the  sophists  were  most  numerous 
and  influential,  but  their  activity  continued  even  into  the 


HISTORIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  431 

fifth  century,  and  some  of  the  great  preachers  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  were  influenced  by  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  mention  any  of  these  late  sophists 
except  those  whose  works  are  preserved  and  are  of  some 
interest.  Among  them  is  Dio  Chrysostom,  who  has  been 
mentioned  as  a  philosophical  orator  and  moral  teacher.  A 
far  less  serious  sophist  who  is  sometimes  classed  among 
philosophers  is  Maximus  of  Tyre  (Cassius  Max- 
Maximus  imug  Tyrius),  who  lived  under  the  Emperor 

Commodus  (180-192  A.  d.).  His  extant  writ- 
ings consist  of  forty-one  popular  lectures  on  philosophical, 
moral,  and  religious  subjects.  His  philosophy  is  an  eclec- 
tic Platonism,  his  discussion  of  every  subject  is  superficial, 
and  his  style  is  full  of  mannerisms.  He  inserts  quotations 
from  Homer  and  other  poets  in  and  out  of  season,  employs 
sometimes  as  many  as  six  or  eight  synonyms  to  express  one 
idea,  and  reminds  one  of  Gorgias  by  the  artificial  symmetry 
of  his  sentences. 

Somewhat  more  interesting,  though  equally  lacking  in 
serious  thoughtfulness,  is  the  popular  orator  iElius  Aris- 
tides.  His  life  extended  from  129  to  189  a.  d. 
^\1U!  He  was  born  at  Hadriani,  in  Mysia,  the  son  of 

a  wealthy  father,  studied  under  two  of  the 
most  famous  sophists  of  the  period,  Aristocles  at  Perga- 
mum  and  Herodes  Atticus  at  Athens,  and  traveled  in 
various  parts  of  the  empire.  He  lived  for  the  most  part  at 
Smyrna.  He  was  a  teacher  of  rhetoric  as  well  as  a  public 
speaker,  but  his  reputation  was  due  to  his  speeches,  fifty- 
five  of  which  are  preserved.  These  are  not  all  real  speeches, 
some  of  them  being  open  letters  intended  to  be  read,  but 
they  have  the  form  of  speeches.  Some  are  concerned  with 
the  affairs  of  the  time,  others  with  historical  questions  and 
subjects  interesting  solely  on  account  of  the  manner  of 
treatment.  The  Sacred  Discourses,  telling  how  Aristides 
was  cured  by  the  god  Asclepius  of  a  disease  which  afflicted 
him  for  some   seventeen  years,  give  an  interesting  view 


432  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  the  superstitions  belonging  to  faith-cure  by  means  of 
dreams.  The  most  celebrated  orations  are  Against  Plato 
in  Defense  of  the  Four,  a  defense  of  Themistocles,  Milti- 
ades,  Pericles,  and  Cimon,  whom  Plato  criticizes  in  the 
Gorgias  ;  the  Panathenaic,  in  praise  of  Athens ;  two  speeches 
Against  Plato  on  Rhetoric,  in  which  rhetoric  is  defended ; 
and  the  Praise  of  Pome.  Aristides  tries  to  imitate  Demos- 
thenes, but  is  without  the  earnestness  which  makes  Demos- 
thenes great.  His  speeches  are  carefully  written,  his 
arguments  are  subtle  and  ingenious,  his  knowledge  of  his- 
tory is  great  and  skillfully  used.  Yet  his  style  is  sometimes 
difficult  and  obscure,  partly  on  account  of  his  very  inge- 
nuity. Oratory,  as  he  conceived  it,  is  merely  an  exercise 
of  skill  on  the  part  of  the  orator,  and  a  pastime  for  the 
hearer. 

Of  all  the  later  sophists,  the  greatest  and  most  original, 
the  only  one  who  belongs  among  the  great  writers  of  the 
world,  is  a  man  so  different  from  the  other 
sophists  that  he  is  often  separated  from  them 
and  put  in  a  class  by  himself,  the  brilliant,  witty,  humorous 
satirist,  Lucian  of  Samosata.  He  was  born  at  Samosata,  the 
capital  of  Commagene,  in  Syria,  about  120  A.  d.  His  parents 
were  poor,  and  apprenticed  the  boy  to  his  uncle,  a  sculptor, 
because  they  thought  he  had  displayed  some  talent  in 
modeling  wax,  and  also  because  a  literary  education  was 
expensive.  But  on  the  first  day  of  his  apprenticeship 
Lucian  spoiled  a  piece  of  marble,  and  got  a  whipping. 
That  decided  him  to  give  up  sculpture  and  turn  to  litera- 
ture. He  attended  schools  at  Samosata,  and  later  in  Ionia, 
and  became  a  sophist,  perhaps  after  a  brief  career  as  an 
advocate.  He  lectured  in  various  cities  in  Greece,  Mace- 
donia, and  Italy,  was  settled  for  a  while  in  one  of  the  cities 
of  southern  Gaul,  then  returned,  about  160  A.  d.,  to  Samo- 
sata, before  taking  up  his  residence  with  all  his  family  at 
Athens  in  165  a.  d.  Here  he  lived  for  some  twenty  years,  * 
when,  after  a  period  of  travel,  he  accepted  from  the  em- 


HISTORIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  433 

peror  a  judicial  appointment  in  Egypt.  After  this  he  is 
heard  of  no  more.  His  death  took  place  not  far  from 
190  A.  D. 

Lucian's  native  tongue  was  not  Greek,  but  no  writer  of 
his  day  has  such  perfect  command  of  the  Greek  language. 
He  does  not  try  to  be  strictly  Attic  in  speech,  and  yet  he 
comes  nearer  the  delicacy  and  charm  of  Attic  diction  than 
any  other  late  author.  During  the  early  part  of  his  career 
he  was  a  sophist,  like  others  of  the  profession,  and  traveled 
about  delivering  speeches  and  lectures  on  various  subjects. 
Even  at  this  time  it  is  probable  that  his  wit  and  humor 
were  evident  in  his  speeches,  but  none  of  the  extant  works 
can  be  ascribed  with  certainty  to  this  period.  Before  he 
settled  at  Athens  he  gave  up  the  composition  of  elaborate 
addresses  in  the  manner  of  the  sophists,  and  henceforth 
devoted  himself  to  satiric  dialogues,  pamphlets,  and  essays. 
These  he  apparently  read  to  an  audience  before  publishing 
them,  retaining  in  this  way  something  of  the  position  of  a 
sophist ;  but  he  was  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the  hollow 
sham  of  the  sophist's  profession,  and  delighted  in  nothing 
more  than  in  exposing  its  emptiness. 

The  works  handed  down  to  us  under  his  name  number 
eighty-two ;  but  about  thirty  of  these  are  spurious,  leaving 
about  fifty  which  may  be  considered  authentic.  These  are 
all  short  pieces,  and  most  of  them  are  in  dialogue  form. 
The  authenticity  of  the  two  little  farces  Gout- 
worki, S  tragedy  and  Swiftfoot  and  of  the  epigrams  has 

been  doubted.  Some  of  the  pieces  are  declama- 
tions or  speeches,  others  are  rather  open  letters ;  but  what- 
ever their  form,  all  are  satirical  articles  called  forth  by 
events  of  the  day,  by  some  chance  conversation  with  some 
friend,  by  something  Lucian  happened  to  see  or  to  read. 
They  are  not  the  results  of  long  and  careful  study,  but  spon- 
taneous utterances,  like  the  editorials  of  a  modern  newspaper. 
In  them  Lucian  shows  his  clear  appreciation  of  the  vain 
pretenses  of   the  philosophers,  the  absurd  superstition  of 


434  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  yulgar,  the  ostentation  of  the  rich,  the  fawning  flattery 
of  the  poor,  the  inconsistencies  and  absurdities  of  the 
myths,  the  lying  propensities  of  the  historians,  the  wild 
vagaries  of  the  romancers,  and  all  the  many  follies  of  his 
age.  He  had  been  a  sophist,  and  had  seen  the  hollowness 
of  that  profession  ;  he  knew  the  doctrines  and  lives  of  the 
philosophers,  and  had  no  respect  for  them;  the  popular 
beliefs  about  the  gods  seemed  to  him  ridiculous.  Against 
all  these  he  directed  the  shafts  of  his  satire,  not  merely 
because  they  were  convenient  targets,  but  because  he  con- 
sidered it  his  duty  to  attack  falsehood  and  insincerity 
wherever  he  could.  His  attacks  are  made  with  graceful 
ease  and  cynical  honesty,  showing  the  follies  and  charla- 
tanry of  the  age  in  a  pitilessly  clear  light.  To  this  extent 
Lucian  is  a  moral  teacher.  Unfortunately,  he  has  nothing 
to  offer  in  exchange  for  the  philosophy  and  the  religion  he 
attacks.  He  is  himself  without  belief  in  anything  except 
common  sense  and  a  vague  feeling  of  propriety,  and,  there- 
fore, with  all  his  love  of  truth  he  has  no  great  truth  to 
preach,  but  only  the  hatred  of  falsehood. 

The  best  known  of  Lucian's  works  are,  perhaps,  the 
Dialogues  of  the  Dead,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in  the 
lower  world ;  the  Dialogues  of  the  Gods,  short  conversations 
between  the  gods,  so  contrived  as  to  show  how  little  they 
deserved  reverence ;  and  the  letter  On  the  Death  of  Pere- 
grinus,  an  account  of  the  life  and  death  of  a  certain  Pere- 
grinus,  who  so  loved  to  make-himself  conspicuous  that  he 
finally  burned  himself  alive  at  the  Olympic  festival.  But 
many  of  the  other  dialogues  and  essays  are  almost,  if  not 
quite,  as  well  known.  The  True  History,  one  of  the  longest 
of  Lucian's  works,  describes  a  voyage  to  the  moon  and  the 
sun,  with  many  absurd  episodes,  like  the  battle  between 
the  Sunites  and  the  Moonites,  fought  on  a  field  of  netting 
stretched  between  sun  and  moon.  This  inspired  in  modern 
times  the  tales  of  Baron  Munchausen  and  Swift's  Gulliver *s 
Travels.    Lucian  wrote  it  as  a  satire  on  the  extravagant 


HISTORIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  435 

romances  of  his  own  times.  The  Alexander  is  a  satirical 
biography  of  Alexander  of  Abonouteichus,  who  established 
an  oracle  in  Pontus  in  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and 
gained  such  a  reputation  that  people  came  even  from  Rome 
to  consult  him.  The  Sale  of  Lives  is  an  auction  in  which 
Zeus  acts  as  proprietor  and  Hermes  as  auctioneer,  and  the 
wares  for  sale  are  the  famous  philosophers,  with  the  modes 
of  life  resulting  from  their  teachings. 

But  it  would  be  useless  to  make  a  list  of  Lucian's  writ- 
ings. His  greatness  lies  in  his  originality,  his  genuine 
hatred  of  all  that  is  false  or  pretentious,  his  quick  per- 
ceptions, and  his  biting  humor — all  expressed  in  a  pecul- 
Lucian's  style  iarty  attractive  style.  This  style  is  apparently 
and  manner  spontaneous,  and  yet  is  founded  upon  imitation 
of  writing.  0f  the  Attic  writers,  especially  of  Plato ;  but 
the  imitation  is  unconscious.  Lucian's  education  consisted 
in  great  part  of  reading  the  classics,  and  their  language 
had  become  quite  as  much  a  part  of  his  nature  as  had  the 
Greek  of  his  own  time.  Possibly  the  fact  that  Greek  was 
not  his  native  language  made  it  easier  for  him  to  write  a 
purer  style  than  many  of  his  contemporaries.  His  mind 
was  full  of  the  great  works  of  earlier  times,  and  his  own 
works  contain  countless  direct  and  indirect  references  to 
them.  These  references  are  so  skillfully  introduced  that 
they  please  us  when  we  recognize  them,  but  do  not  force 
themselves  upon  us  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  feel  our 
ignorance  when  we  fail  to  understand  them.  There  is 
much  in  Lucian's  manner  of  writing  that  recalls  the  New 
Comedy.  He  probably  had  precursors  in  the  art  of  prose 
satire — for  instance,  Menippus  (see  page  362),  whom  he  in- 
troduces in  his  dialogues — but  the  freshness  and  delicacy 
of  his  wit  and  the  charm  of  his  style  are  all  his  own. 

Alciphron,  an  imitator  and  probably  younger  contem- 
porary of  Lucian,  is  known  to  us  by  a  collection  of  one 
hundred  and  eighteen  letters,  in  five  books.  Imaginary 
letters  were  one  of  the  forms  of  the  sophistic  writing  of 


436  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  time.     Alciphron's  letters,  written  in  the  names  of  men 
and  women  of  all  classes,  describe  scenes  similar  to  those  of 

the  New  Comedy.     The  time  and  place  are  the 

cip  ron.       fourth  century  b.  c.  and  Athens.    The  language 

is  elegant,  the  style  easy  and  attractive,  and  the  description 

of  life  and  customs  is  interesting.     Alciphron  is„  however, 

in  all  respects  inferior  to  Lucian. 

Works  by  three  sophists  named  Philostratus  are  pre- 
served.    The  eldest  of  the  three,  Flavius  Philostratus,  was, 

according  to  Suidas,  an  Athenian,  who  flour- 
Phil    tr  ti      isne(i  under  Septimius  Severus  (193-211  A.  d.), 

and  taught  at  Athens  and  Some.  He  wrote  a 
Life  ofApollonius  of  Tyana  and  Lives  of  the  Sophists.  The 
first  work,  written  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Empress  Julia 
Domna,  is  a  pretentious  biography  of  a  Pythagorean  im- 
postor and  wonder-man  of  the  first  century  after  Christ, 
and  is  interesting  chiefly  because  it  shows  how  readily  the 
people  allowed  themselves  to  be  imposed  upon.  The  Lives 
of  the  Sophists — brief  sketches  of  sophists  and  orators— are 
of  some  value,  because  they  are  derived  from  letters  and 
other  sources  now  lost,  including  the  personal  recollections 
of  the  writer.  They  show  no  critical  faculty,  and  their 
style  is  not  remarkable.  A  treatise  On  Gymnastics  and 
some  Letters  by  the  same  author  may  be  passed  over.  The 
second  Philostratus,  son-in-law  of  the  first,  is  called  a  Lem- 
nian.  He  taught  at  Athens.  When  he  was  twenty-four 
years  old  the  Emperor  Caracalla,  who  reigned  from  211  to 
217,  granted  him  freedom  from  taxation.  His  birth  was, 
therefore,  not  far  from  190  A.  d.  His  Heroicus  is  a  dialogue 
between  a  vintner  living  in  the  Chersonnese  and  a  Phoeni- 
cian stranger.  The  vintner  tells  how  the  hero  Protesilaus 
has  appeared  to  him  and  given  him  much  information  about 
the  ancient  heroes.  The  work  is  based  upon  the  old  cyclic 
poems,  and  contains,  some  interesting  information  about 
the  ancient  legends.  The  Pictures,  by  the  same  author, 
are  descriptions  of   sixty-four  pictures  which  the  author 


HISTOBIANS  AND  LATER  SOPHISTS  437 

says  he  saw  in  a  portico  at  Naples.  Whether  any  or  all  of 
the  pictures  really  existed  is  uncertain,  but  the  descrip- 
tions are  ingenious,  clever  essays,  with  considerable  liveli- 
ness and  good  taste,  in  spite  of  some  affectation.  The 
third  Philostratus,  grandson  of  the  second,  wrote,  toward 
the  end  of  the  third  century,  a  second  series  of  Pictures, 
much  inferior  to  the  first.  Descriptions  of  ten  works  of 
statuary,  by  an  unknown  Callistratus,  are  generally  pub- 
lished with  the  Pictures. 

iElian   (Claudius    iElianus),   born    at    Prseneste,  near 
Kome,  was  a  contemporary  of  the  Lemnian  Philostratus. 

His  extant  works  are  the  Nature  of  Animals, 
2Elia.ii 

the  Various  History,  and  the  Rustic  Letters. 

The  Rustic  Letters  contain  some  situations  from  comedies 
transferred  to  epistolary  form,  and  the  other  works  contain 
a  great  array  of  facts,  or  what  are  supposed  to  be  facts, 
accompanied  by  many  anecdotes  and  much  moralizing. 
The  style  aims  at  elegance  and  attains  insipidity. 

A  collection  of  facts  far  more  heterogeneous  than  those 
contained  in  iElian's  works  is  the  Deipnosopliistw  (Dinner- 
sophists)  of  Athenaeus  of  Naucratis,  in  Egypt. 
Of  this  writer  we  know  only  the  place  of  his 
birth  and  that  he  was  born  under  Marcus  Aurelius  (161- 
180  a.  d.).  His  work,  in  fifteen  books,  is  a  curious  assem- 
blage of  information  on  cooking,  literature,  art,  history, 
and  other  matters,  with  no  literary  merit  whatsoever,  but 
valuable  on  account  of  the  curious  information  and  numer- 
ous quotations  it  contains. 


CHAPTER    XL 

THE   NOVEL-POETRY-SCIENCE-PHILOSOPHY- 
CHRISTIAN  WRITERS 

The  Greek  novel — Antonius  Diogenes,  first  century  after  Christ — 
Iamblichus,  about  170  a.  d. — Xenophon  of  Ephesus,  about  200  a.  d. — ■ 
Heliodorus,  third  century — Chariton,  third  century — Longus,  second 
century  (?) — Poetry — Dionysius  the  Periegete,  second  century — Oppian, 
about  138-168  a.  d. — Babrius,  early  second  century — Grammar  and  rhet- 
oric— Apollonius  Dyscolus,  about  150  a.  d. — Herodian,  about  175  a.  d. 
— Phrynichus,  late  second  century — Pollux,  end  of  the  second  century 
— Harpocration,  end  of  the  second  century — Hermogenes  of  Tarsus, 
about  170  a.  d. — Apsines,  first  half  of  the  third  century — Menander  of 
Laodicea,  about  200  a.  d. — Longinus,  about  220-273  a.  d. — Science — 
Claudius  Ptolemy,  about  140  a.  d.— Galen,  131-201  a.  d—  Philosophy— 
Sextus  Empiricus,  about  180  a.  d. — Neoplatonism — Plotinus,  204-270 
A.  d. — Porphyry,  233  to  about  304  a.  d. — Christian  writers — Quadratus, 
about  100  a.  d. — Aristides  of  Athens,  second  century — Justin  Martyr, 
about  100  to  about  165  a.  d. — Other  apologists — Doctors  of  the  Church 
— Clement  of  Alexandria,  about  160  to  about  215  a.  d. — Origen,  185-254 
a.  d. — Other  Christian  writers. 

An  interesting  product  of  the  teachings  of  the  sophists 
of  this  period  is  the  novel,  the  love  story  in  prose.    In  itself 
the  Greek  novel  is  rather  uninteresting,  hut  it 
deserves  a  few  words  as  the  earliest  known  form 
of  what  has  since  developed  into  one  of  the  most  important 
branches  of  literature.     The  sentiment  of  love  played,  as 
has  been   said   before,  an  important  part  in  Alexandrian 
poetry.     Love  elegies  and  epigrams  were  many  and  love- 
scenes  were  made  prominent  in  epics.     The  love  passages 
in  history  and  mythology  were  also  more  dwelt  upon  than 
438 


THE  NOVEL  439 

in  earlier  times.     At  the  same  time  the  historians  began  to 

embellish  their  histories  (especially  those  of  Alexander) 

with  marvelous  and  fantastic  tales.     It  was  therefore  only 

natural  that  the  sophists,  when  they  wished  to  suggest  to 

their  pupils  subjects  for  composition,  should  suggest  strange 

situations  which   might  lead  to   love-affairs.     From  such 

origins  arose  a  series  of  novels  full  of  impossible  situations, 

strange   reverses   of    fortune,  wonderful   recognitions   and 

adventures,  with  no  real  delineation  of  character  and  little 

stylistic  merit. 

The   earliest  novels  known  to   us — though  there  are 

traces  of  others  somewhat  earlier — date  from  the  first  cen- 

...     «.     tury  after  Christ,  and  these  are  known  only 
Antonius  Di-  J  .'  ,  •_•      i  ,     f 

ogenes,  lam-    through  summaries,  as  the  originals  are  lost. 

blichus,  Xen-  At   that  time    Antonius  Diogenes  wrote  The 
ophon  of  Wonders  Beyond  Thule,  in  twenty-four  books, 

a  rambling  tale  of  the  wonderful  adventures  of 
a  pair  of  lovers  and  their  friends  in  various  parts  of  the 
known  world,  in  Hades,  and  elsewhere.  The  Babyloniaca, 
written  between  166  and  180  a.  d.  by  a  Hellenized  Syrian, 
Iamblichus,  told  of  a  series  of  adventures  that  befell  the 
beautiful  Sinonis  and  her  beloved  husband,  Ehodanes,  on 
account  of  the  love  of  Garmus,  the  widowed  king  of  Baby- 
lon, for  Sinonis.  In  the  end  Ehodanes,  after  having  been 
crucified  by  Garmus,  won  his  wife  and  became  king  of 
Babylon.  There  seems  to  have  been  some  attempt  to  repre- 
sent character  in  this  novel.  The  Ephesian  Tales,  written 
in  the  third  century  after  Christ  by  Xenophon  of  Ephesus 
and  preserved  to  us  entire,  tell  in  five  books  the  adventures 
of  the  beautiful  Habrocomes  of  Ephesus  and  his  fair  bride, 
Anthea,  who  are  separated  soon  after  their  marriage,  are 
captured  by  various  pirates  and  others,  and  travel  about  the 
world  with  varying  fortunes,  until  they  are  finally  reunited 
at  Rhodes. 

Heliodorus  of  Emesa,  in  Phoenicia,  wrote  in  the  third 
century  after  Christ  the  longest  and  most  important  of  the 
29 


440  GREEK  LITERATURE 

novels  of  this  kind,  The  Ethiopian  Tale  of  Theagenes  and 
Chariclea.     The  infant  daughter  of  an  Ethiopian  king  is 
carried  to  Greece,  grows  up,  and  falls  in  love 
with  Theagenes,  who  is  equally  in  love  with 
her.    They  pass  through  many  adventures,  are  several  times 
captured  by  pirates  and  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  dangers,  but 
at  last  Chariclea's  identity  is  disclosed  to  her  father,  Theage- 
nes distinguishes  himself  before  the  eyes  of  the  king,  and 
the  lovers  are  married.     Some  of  the  persons  of  this  tale 
are  fairly  well  drawn,  and  style  and  composition  are  agree- 
able ;  but  the  general  character  of  the  story  is 
Chariton,  the  &,        ...  ,  , J 

Story  of  Apol-  the  same  as  that  of  its  predecessors.    To  about 

lonius  of  the  same  time  belong  the  much  inferior  tale  of 

Tyre,  Achilles    Charms  and  Callirrhoe,  by  Chariton,  and  proba- 
Tatius 

bly  the  Story  of  ApoUonius  of  Tyre,  which  is 

preserved  only  in  a  Latin  translation.     The  Adventures  of 

Leucippe  and  Clitophon,  by  Achilles  Tatius,  seems  to  belong 

to  the  fourth  or  fifth  century. 

The  pastoral  novel  Daphnis  and  Chloe  was  written  by 

Longus,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  Samian.     His  date  may 

be  as  early  as  the  second  century,  but  is  uncer- 

CMoSni"  and  tain-  Tw°  children'  daphnis  and  Chloe,  were 
exposed  to  die  in  the  woods,  but  were  brought 
up  by  shepherds.  They  fall  in  love  with  each  other,  are  at 
last  found  to  be  the  children  of  wealthy  parents,  are  married, 
and  return  to  their  beloved  pastures  to  live  a  happy,  idyllic 
life.  In  some  respects  this  story  may  be  likened  to  a  pas- 
toral idyll  in  prose.  The  style  is  simple  and  attractive,  and 
the  description  of  manners  and  customs  good.  Some  of 
the  situations  are,  however,  devised  with  too  great  ingenu- 
ity and  the  moral  tone  of  the  story  is  occasionally  low. 

There  is  little  poetry  of  interest  in  the  second  and  third 
centuries.  Epigrams  and  other  forms  of  light  verse  con- 
tinued to  be  written,  but  were  not  important,  while  epic 
poetry  was  insignificant  and  dramatic  poetry  was  not  writ- 
ten at  all.     There  were  numerous  didactic  poems,  some  of 


POETRY  441 

which  are  preserved,  among  them  some  geographies  in  verse, 
such  as  the  Guide  of  the  Inhabited  World,  by  Dionysius  the 
Periegete ;  also  medical  and  botanical  poems.     Among  all 

the  poets  of  the  time  only  Oppian  and  Babrius 
nysius  the  seem  worth  mentioning.  Oppian,  from  Oilicia, 
Periegete,  wrote  a  poem  On  Fishing,  not  long  before  180 
Oppian,  Ba-      A  D  ^  jn  gve  D00k:S.    It  is  not  really  poetry,  but 

gives  descriptions  and  rules  for  fishing  which 
have  some  elegance  of  expression.  An  inferior  poem  On 
Hunting  is  probably  the  work  of  a  later  Oppian.  Babrius 
wrote  fables  in  choliambic  verse.  The  fables  are  for  the 
most  part  the  ancient  beast  stories  attributed  to  ^Esop,  cur- 
rent in  prose  versions  in  the  mouth  of  the  people;  some 
few  Babrius  seems  to  have  invented.  The  date  of  Babrius 
is  not  known,  but  he  appears  to  belong  to  the  second  century 
after  Christ.  He  tells  his  fables  simply  and  writes  verses 
skillfully,  but  has  little  imagination  and  no  high  order  of 
literary  merit. 

A  few  grammarians  and  writers  on  rhetoric  belonging 
to  the  second  and  third  centuries  should  be  mentioned, 
Grammarians  though  their  works  are  hardly  to  be  classed  as 
and  writers  literature.  Apollonius,  called  Dyscolus  on  ae- 
on rhetoric,  count  of  his  bad  temper,  of  Alexandria,  belongs 
to  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century,  was  a  theoretical 
grammarian,  and  may  be  called  one  of  the  founders  of 
syntax.  His  son  and  pupil,  Herodian,  continued  his  work. 
Both  exercised  great  influence  on  the  subsequent  study  of 
grammar.  Several  scholars  of  this  time  were  collectors  and 
explainers  of  words.  These  lexicographers  were  for  the 
most  part  Atticists — that  is,  men  who  wished  to  preserve 
the  words  in  use  at  Athens  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  cen- 
turies b.  C,  while  others  were  antiquarians.  Phrynichus 
wrote  a  lost  dictionary  called  Sophistic  Preparation,  dedi- 
cated to  the  Emperor  Commodus  (180-192  A.D.).  His  Choice 
of  Attic  Words  and  Phrases  is  extant.  Julius  Pollux,  ap- 
pointed professor  of  sophistics  at  Athens  under  Commodus, 


442  GREEK  LITERATURE 

wrote  an  Onomasticon,  a  dictionary  giving  the  proper  Attic 
names  for  things,  with  numerous  references  and  various  in- 
formation. This  is  preserved  only  in  abstract.  The  extant 
Lexicon  of  the  Ten  Attic  Orators,  byHarpocration  of  Alex- 
andria, seems  to  belong  to  the  same  period.  Writers  on 
theoretical  rhetoric  are :  Hermogenes  of  Tarsus,  in  the 
second  half  of  the  second  century ;  Apsines  of  Gadara,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  third  century ;  Menander  of  Laodicea, 
at  about  the  same  time ;  and  Cassius  Longinus,  born  about 
220  A.  d.,  and  put  to  death  in  273  for  having  supported  the 
rebellion  of  Queen  Zenobia  of  Palmyra  against  the  Emperor 
Anrelian.  The  valuable  treatise  On  the  Sublime  (see  page 
410)  is  wrongly  ascribed  to  him,  but 'his  great  reputation 
was  probably  deserved. 

While  the  sophists  were  attracting  great  audiences  with 
superficial  discourses  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  men  of  more 
Science.  scientific  spirit  were  carrying  on  investigations 

Ptolemy  and  and  committing  their  results  to  writing.  The 
Galen.  names  of  most  of  these  men  may  be  passed  over 

in  silence ;  but  two,  Ptolemy  and  Galen,  must  be  mentioned. 
Claudius  Ptolemaeus  of  Alexandria  was  born  early  in  the 
second  century,  and  was  living  under  Marcus  Aurelius  (161- 
180  A.  D.).  He  was  a  distinguished  mathematician,  astron- 
omer, and  geographer.  His  Astronomy — translated  into 
Arabic,  and  from  that  language  into  Latin — exercised  great 
influence  in  the  middle  ages  under  the  name  of  Almagest. 
A  long  treatise  on  astrology,  which  has  been  supposed  to 
be  the  work  of  a  later  writer,  is  probably  by  Ptolemy.  His 
Geography  is  valuable  for  its  information  concerning  trade 
routes  and  means  of  communication  between  different  parts 
of  the  Eoman  Empire.  Several  other  works  are  either  lost 
or  only  partially  preserved.  The  science  of  medicine  fur- 
nished several  writers ;  but  the  only  one  of  great  importance 
is  Claudius  Galenus,  son  of  Nico  of  Pergamum.  He  was 
born  in  131  A.  D.,  studied  at  Pergamum,  Smyrna,  Corinth, 
and  Alexandria,  and  went  to  Eome  in  163,  where  he  lived 


PHILOSOPHY  443 

most  of  the  time  until  his  death,  in  201.  He  was  eminent 
as  a  practising  physician,  as  a  lecturer,  and  as  a  writer. 
His  principal  works  are  on  medicine,  and  offer  a  complete 
course  of  instruction.  His  other  writings  treat  of  logic, 
ethics,  philosophy,  and  even  grammar.  Though  not  a  bril- 
liant man,  Galen  is  sensible  and  learned. 

The  old  schools  of  philosophy  had,  by  the  third  century 
after  Christ,  fallen  into  decay.  They  existed  in  name,  but 
the  differences  between  them  were  traditional  rather  than 
real,  except  in  so  far  as  the  practises  of  the  Cynics  appealed 
to  the  less  refined  natures  and  the  Platonists  tended  more 
and  more  to  a  sort  of  half  Pythagorean  mysticism.  None  of 
the  followers  of  the  old  schools  is  of  any  literary  importance. 
Only  one  writer,  Sextus — called  Sextus  Empiricus,  because 
he  was  a  physician  of  the  empiric  school — de- 
EmDiricus  serves  mention.  His  extant  works — Pyrrho- 
nian  Sketches,  containing  the  main  doctrines 
of  Pyrrho,  the  founder  of  the  Skeptic  School,  and  Sceptica, 
in  which  the  skeptic  doctrines  are  supported  in  detail — 
furnish  us  with  much  information  concerning  the  views  of 
various  philosophers.  The  editions  divide  the  Sceptica  into 
five  books  Against  the  Mathematicians  and  five  Against  the 
Dogmatics. 

An  event  of  real  importance  in  the  history  of  philoso- 
phy was  the  rise  of  Neoplatonism.  The  founder  of  the 
Neoplato-  new  doctrine  was  Plotinus  (204-270  A.  d.),  a 
nism.  Greek  from  Mcopolis,  in   Egypt.     He  was  a 

Plotinus.  pupil  of  Ammonius  Saccas,  at  Alexandria,  who 
is  sometimes  called  the  founder  of  Neoplatonism  because 
Plotinus  derived  from  him  the  germs  of  his  doctrine.  In 
243  A.  D.  Plotinus  joined  the  expedition  of  Gordianus  against 
the  Persians  in  the  hope  of  learning  the  wisdom  of  the 
Magi,  but  returned  in  244,  and  from  that  time  taught  at 
Eome.  He  died  in  270  A.  d.  at  the  country-seat  of  his  pupil 
Zethus,  in  Campania.  His  doctrines  were  published  by  his 
pupil  Porphyry  in  the  form  of  Enneads  —  six  groups,  of 


444  GREEK  LITERATURE 

nine  treatises  each.  They  treat  of  ethics,  the  origin  and 
government  of  the  world,  the  soul,  reason,  the  nature  of 
being — in  short,  of  all  the  great  questions  of  philosophy, 
and  contain  a  complete  exposition  of  the  new  doctrine. 

This  doctrine  purports  to  be  merely  an  explanation  and 
development  of  the  teachings  of  Plato,  but  contains  ele- 
ments derived  from  Aristotle,  Pythagoras,  the 
Neopiatonic      g^oics,  and    other    sects,  in    addition  to  the 

doctrine.  '  . 

thoughts  of  Plotinus  himself.  God  is  con- 
ceived of  as  absolutely  pure,  as  far  removed  as  possible 
from  matter  and  the  world  of  appearances  in  which  we 
live.  The  real  object  of  philosophy  is  to  raise  man  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  God  by  freeing  him  from  the  encum- 
brances of  matter.  The  world  arose  by  the  separation  of 
parts  of  the  divine  soul  and  their  association  with  matter. 
The  human  soul  is  a  part  of  the  divine  soul,  but  rendered 
impure  by  contamination  with  matter.  Its  proper  end  is 
to  free  itself  and  return  to  the  divine  soul,  and  this  it  may 
hope  to  do  through  philosophy.  Such  a  philosophy  is 
really  a  religion,  full  of  mysticism,  and  leading  naturally 
to  ascetic  practises  and  pure  lives.  The  language  in 
which  it  is  expressed  by  Plotinus  is  obscure  and  difficult, 
but  his  thoughts  are  high  and  noble.  He  is  a  sincere  and 
impassioned  preacher  of  what  he  holds  to  be  the  truth, 
inspired  by  a  fervent  love  of  the  true  and  the  good. 

The  philosophy,  or  rather  religion,  of  Neoplatonism  is 
the  latest,  and  in  some  respects  the  most  complete,  expres- 
sion of  purely  Hellenic  thought  on  philosophical  and  re- 
ligious subjects.  It  is  in  the  form  of  Neoplatonism  that  the 
old  Hellenic  spirit  makes  its  last  stand  against  the  rising 
tide  of  Christianity.  Porphyry,  the  chief  pu- 
pil of  Plotinus,  was  also  one  of  the  defenders 
of  the  old  faith  against  the  new.  He  was  born  at  Tyre  in 
233  A.  d.  and  studied  grammar  and  rhetoric  under  Longi- 
nus  at  Athens.  In  262  he  went  to  Eome,  and  soon  became 
an  enthusiastic  pupil  of  Plotinus.     His  death  took  place 


CHRISTIAN  WRITERS  445 

not  far  from  304  A.  d.  His  works  were  many — on  philoso- 
phy, history,  mathematics,  grammar,  and  other  subjects. 
Among  his  extant  works  are  the  Life  of  Plotinus,  a  treatise 
on  Abstinence  from  Meat,  a  hortatory  Letter  to  Marcella  (his 
wife),  Homeric  Investigations,  and  an  allegorical  treatise 
On  the  Cave  of  the  Nymphs  in  the  Odyssey.  His  argument 
Against  the  Christians,  in  fifteen  books,  which  called  forth 
replies  from  several  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church,  is  lost,  as 
are  many  of  his  other  works.  Porphyry  was  a  diligent 
writer,  a  man  of  good  ability,  who  was  able  to  learn  and 
remember  many  things.  His  writing  is  simpler  than  that 
of  Plotinus,  whose  obscure  statements  he  sometimes  makes 
clear,  but  his  literary  skill  is  not  great. 

In  the   second  century,  Christian  writers  make  their 

appearance  in   Greek  literature.      Before  that  time,  the 

Christian  writings,  even  when  written  in  Greek, 

have  no  relation  to  Greek  literature,  being  sim- 
writers.  -i 

pie  narratives,  letters,  and  the  like,  composed 

with  no  reference  to  literary  quality,  though  often  pos- 
sessing the  charm  of  simplicity  and  sometimes  original- 
ity of  expression.  But  in  so  far  as  they  belong  to  the 
history  of  any  literature  other  than  that  of  the  Christian 
Church  they  belong  to  the  history  of  Jewish  literature. 
In  the  second  century,  when  Christianity  became  more 
prominent  and  aroused  against  itself  the  anger  of  the 
pagans,  its  more  learned  members  found  it  necessary  to  de- 
fend their  faith,  and  they  did  this  by  means  of  the  arts 
of  argument  which  they  had  learned  in  pagan  schools ;  for 
these  early  defenders  of  Christianity — apologists,  as  they 
are  called — were  for  the  most  part  converted  pagans  who 
had  been  trained  in  the  schools  of  philosophy.  Among  the 
early  apologists  are  Quadratus,  whose  Apology  addressed  to 
the  Emperor  Hadrian  is  lost,  and  Aristides  of  Athens,  who 
wrote  an  extant  Apology  to  Antoninus  Pius,  but  they  may  be 
passed  over.  Justin  Martyr  is  more  important.  He  was 
born  of  pagan  parents  at  Flavia  Neapolis,  in  Samaria,  about 


446  GREEK  LITERATURE 

100  A.  d.,  and  was  converted  to  Christianity  in  123.     He 
went  to  Kome,  where  he  seems  to  have  had  a  school  of 
Christianity.     He  died  a  martyr  between  163 
Martyr.  an(*  167,     ^s  two  Apologies,  addressed  to  Mar- 

cus Antoninus,  date  from  about  150  A.  d.  In 
his  Dialogue  with  the  Jew  Tryphon  he  refutes  some  of  the 
views  of  Christianity  held  by  the  Jews  and  informs  us  about 
his  own  education.  The  other  writings  attributed  to  Justin 
are  of  doubtful  authenticity.  His  writing  is  careless  and 
occasionally  obscure,  but  sometimes  rises  to  eloquence.  He 
is  regarded  as  the  chief  among  the  apologists, 
apologists  After  hm*  Tatian,  Athenagoras,  Theophilus  of 
Antioch,  Ariston,  Miltiades,  and  Irenaeus  con- 
tinued the  defense  of  Christianity,  but  without  adding  any- 
thing of  great  literary  importance. 

The  writings  of  the  apologists  were  little  more  than  let- 
ters or  addresses  in  defense  of  Christianity.  In  the  third 
century  Christian  writings  become  more  extensive,  learned, 
and  elaborate.  The  apologists  are  succeeded  by  the  doctors 
The  doctors  or  teachers.  Tne  first  of  these  is  Clement  of 
of  the  Church.  Alexandria,  who  was  born,  perhaps  in  Greece, 

Clement  of  about  160  A.  d.,  but  settled  at  Alexandria  about 
Alexandria.       lg0?  and  began  to  teach  there  about  m     jn 

202  or  203  he  left  Alexandria  to  escape  the  persecution 
under  Septimius  Severus,  and  seems  to  have  spent  the  rest 
of  his  life  in  wandering.  He  died  not  far  from  215  A.  d. 
His  extant  writings  are  an  Exhortation  to  the  Greeks,  urging 
the  acceptance  of  Christianity ;  the  Pedagogue,  containing 
the  main  points  of  Christian  moral  teaching ;  and  the  Car- 
pets (Stromateis),  containing  the  chief  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity in  connection  with  passages  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  He  tries  to  show  that  Greek  philosophy  is 
younger  than  that  of  other  peoples,  and  that  the  best  part 
of  it  is  derived  from  the  Jews.  He  quotes  much  from 
Greek  writers,  often  from  those  whose  works  are  now  lost. 
He   is  the  first  who  uses  Greek  philosophical  arguments 


CHRISTIAN   WRITERS  447 

in  defense  of  Christianity.  He  was  followed  by  Origen,  his 
pupil  and  his  successor  as  a  teacher  at  Alexandria. 

Origen  was  the  greatest  and  most  learned  of  the  doctors 
of  the  Church.  He  was  born  at  Alexandria  of  Christian 
parents  in  185,  and  studied  under  Clement, 
whom  he  succeeded  upon  his  departure  from 
Alexandria.  Here  he  taught  at  least  until  216.  The  later 
years  of  his  life  were  occupied  with  journeys  and  teach- 
ing in  many  places,  and  he  died  at  Tyre  in  254  A.  d.  His 
writings  were  very  numerous  and  are  in  part  preserved. 
They  consist  chiefly  of  Commentaries  on  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  and  of  Homilies  or  sermons.  He  also  edited 
the  Bible  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin.  He  made  great  use 
of  allegory  in  explaining  the  Scriptures,  and  did  more  even 
than  Clement  to  spread  the  ideas  of  Greek  philosophers, 
especially  of  Plato,  abroad  in  the  Christian  schools.  He 
shows  at  the  same  time  remarkable  breadth  of  view. 
His  book  Against  the  So-called  True  Argument  of  Celsus  is 
a  reply  to  arguments  against  Christianty  brought  forward 
by  Celsus,  an  Epicurean  philosopher  of  the  second  century 
after  Christ,  and  shows  qualities  similar  to  those  of  his 
other  works.  His  literary  merit  is  not  great,  whatever  his 
other  importance  in  the  history  of  Christian  thought. 

Christian  The  same  may  be  said  of  his  contemporary 
writers.  Hippolytus,  of  the  somewhat  older  Methodius 

of  Tyre,  of  Pamphilus  of  Csesarea,  and  of  the  chronicle 
writer  Julius  Africanus.  Christian  literature  was  as  yet 
undeveloped. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN 

Decline  of  Greek  literature — Schools  of  oratory — Himerius,  about 
315-386  a.  d.— Libanius,  314-393  a.  d.— Themistius,  about  330  to  about 
390  a.  d.— Julian  the  Apostate,  331-363  a.  d.— Choricius,  about  430  a.  d. 
— Achilles  Tatius,  fifth  century  (?) — Lexicographers — Orion,  about  425 
A.  d.— Hesychius,  fifth  century  (?)— Orus,  fifth  century  (f)— Suidas,  tenth 
century — Photius,  second  half  of  the  ninth  century — Stobaaus,  sixth 
century  (?)  —  Historians  —  Eunapius,  about  346  to  about  414  a.  d.  — 
Zozimus,  about  500  a.  d. — Procopius,  before  500  to  after  562  a.  d. — 
Stephanus  of  Byzantium,  fifth  century  (?) — Neoplatonism — Iamblichus, 
about  280  to  about  350  a.  d. — Hypatia,  killed  in  415  a.  d. — Synesius, 
about  370-413  b.  c. — Nestorius,  fourth  century — Plutarch,  about  350- 
431  a.  d. — Syrianus,  about  435  a.  d. — Proclus,  about  410-485  a.  d. — 
Poetry — Quintus  Smyrnaeus,  fourth  century  (?) — Nonnus,  fourth  cen- 
tury— Tryphiodorus,  fifth  century — Musaeus,  fifth  century — Orphic 
poems — Sibylline  oracles — The  Anthology — Christian  writers — Atha- 
nasius,  about  295-373  a.  p.— Basil  of  Caesarea,  about  330-379  a.  d. — 
Gregory  Nazianzene,  about  338  to  about  390  a.  d. — Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
after  330  to  394  a.  d. — St.  John  Chrysostom,  about  345-407  a.  d—  Euse- 
bius,  about  265-340  a.  d .— Evagrius,  536  to  about  600  a.  d.— Cyril,  412- 
444  a.  d. — Theodoret,  fifth  century — Conclusion. 

The  period  of  two  centuries  from  Constantine  to  Jus- 
tinian is  the  last  period  of  ancient  Greek  literature — a 
Decline  of  period  of  decline,  which  may  be  passed  over 
Greek  rapidly.     The  art  and  learning  of  the  sophists, 

literature.  as  we\\  ag  the  philosophical  and  ethical  specu- 
lations of  the  Neoplatonists,  faded  away  and  became  ab- 
sorbed by  Christianity;  and  Christian  eloquence,  after  a 
brief  period  of  brilliancy,  sank  into  obscurity ;  history  was 
448 


FROM  CONSTANTINE   TO  JUSTINIAN  449 

written  with  little  success,  so  far  as  its  literary  value  is 
concerned,  while  poetry  is  represented  only  by  artificial, 
imitative  epics  and  some  of  the  light  verses  of  the  An- 
thology. 

The  schools  of  the  sophists  had  been  less  flourishing  in 
the  last  years  of  the  third  and  first  years  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury than  in  the  time  immediately  before,  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  political  disorders  of  the  empire.     But  with  the  new 
order  of  things  under  Constantine  came  new  opportunities 
for  the  exercise  of  studied  eloquence.     Schools 
c  oo  s  o         o|  oratorv  flourished  in   all   the  chief  cities, 
training    young    men   to   occupy  government 
offices.     The  teachers  in  these  schools  enjoyed  great  repu- 
tations at  the  time,  and  their  oratory  was  much  admired. 
Something  of  their  lives  and  qualities  may  be  learned  from 
the    Lives  of  the   Sophists,  by  Eunapius,  but  it  will  be 
enough  for  us  to  mention  a  few  whose  principal  works  are 
preserved. 

Himeriuswas  born  about  315  A.  d.  at  Prusa,in  Bithynia, 
but  lived  nearly  all  his  life  at  Athens,  where  he  had  many 
.  pupils,  among  them  the  Christian  orators  Basil 

of  Caesarea  and  Gregory  of  Nazianzus.  He 
took  no  part  in  public  life,  and  all  his  speeches  were  either 
for  use  in  his  teaching  or  for  delivery  on  special  occasions, 
such  as  the  arrival  of  a  new  governor  or  the  visit  of  the 
orator  to  a  new  city.  Twenty-four  orations  are  preserved 
entire,  besides  fragments  of  others.  They  show  a  great 
lack  of  thoughts,  but  care  in  execution.  They  are  full  of 
reminiscences  of  the  poets,  and  preserve  to  us  a  number  of 
interesting  fragments.  The  style  is  musical  and  poetic, 
but  without  vigor. 

Libanius  of  Antioch,  who  lived  from  314  to  393  A.  D.,  is 
the  most  important  sophist  of  the  time.     He  was  educated 
.  at  Antioch  and  Athens,  and  taught  at  Constan- 

tinople, Nicomedia,  and,  from  354  until  his 
death,  at  Antioch.     He  was  one  of  the  most  important  per- 


450  GREEK  LITERATURE 

sons  in  the  whole  Levant,  partly  on  account  of  his  own 
ability,  partly  through  the  favor  of  the  emperors,  especially 
Julian  the  Apostate.  He  delivered  public  speeches  on  all- 
occasions,  addressed  written  orations  to  generals,  governors, 
and  emperors,  and  carried  on  a  vast  correspondence,  from 
which  1,607  letters  remain,  addressed  to  all  sorts  of  persons, 
including  Christian  bishops  and  scholars.  His  other  extant 
writings  are  numerous.  Many  of  them  are  school  exer- 
cises, among  which  his  Life  of  Demosthenes  and  Arguments 
of  Demosthenic  orations  should  be  classed;  but  the  most 
interesting  are  sixty-eight  orations  and  lectures  of  various 
kinds,  dealing  in  general  either  with  ethical  problems  or, 
more  frequently,  with  the  events  of  the  day.  These  last 
are  the  most  interesting,  for  they  disclose  the  rivalries  of 
schools,  the  life  of  the  great  cities  of  the  eastern  empire, 
the  inner  workings  of  the  imperial  government,  and  even 
to  some  extent  the  characters  of  the  emperors.  The  mis- 
fortune of  Libanius  is  his  genuine  attachment  to  the  ancient 
religion  at  a  time  when  Christianity  was  in  the  ascendant, 
He  did  not  understand  the  new  religion,  and  regarded  it  as 
a  foe  to  civilization,  although  he  had  friends  among  the 
Christians.  The  decline  of  classical  studies  troubled  and 
pained  him,  and  led  him  to  vain  complaints.  But  his  talent 
as  a  rhetorical  writer  is  incontestable,  though  it  was  too 
highly  rated  by  his  contemporaries.  He  is  too  fond  of  de- 
tails, lacks  the  passionate  vigor  of  the  great  orator,  and  is 
sometimes  obscure ;  but  he  has  imagination,  ingenuity,  and 
often  indubitable  sincerity. 

Themistius,  who  lived  from  about  330  to  about  390  A.  d., 
was  born  in    Paphlagonia,  and  taught   at  Constantinople 
.    .  from  about  350  until  his  death.     He  took  part 

in  public  affairs,  was  often  sent  as  ambassador, 
was  senator,  held  several  offices,  and  was  made  prefect  of 
the  city  in  384  by  Theodosius.  He  delivered  addresses  in 
various  cities,  and  was  the  chief  orator  of  Constantinople, 
envied  by  some,  to  be  sure,  but  honored  by  all,  both  Chris- 


THE   EMPEROR  JULIAN. 

Bust  on  the  Cathedral  at  Acerenza. 


FROM  CONST  ANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  451 

tians  and  pagans.  His  extant  works  consist  of  Paraphrases 
on  Aristotle's  physics,  analytics,  and  psychology,  and  thirty- 
four  orations  relating  to  events  of  his  time.  His  senti- 
ments are  noble,  and  his  orations,  though  they  seem  finished 
rather  than  impassioned,  are  not  without  dignity,  and  even 
eloquence. 

The  Emperor  Julian  (the  Apostate)  belongs,  as  a  writer, 
to  the  school  of  the  sophists.    He  was  born  in  331  a.  d.,  was 

long  an  object  of  suspicion  on  account  of  his 
juleia™peror    nearness  to  the  throne,  was  raised  to  the  rank 

of  Caesar  by  Constantius,  became  emperor  in  361, 
and  lost  his  life  in  a  campaign  against  the  Persians  in  363. 
He  was  brought  up  as  a  Christian,  but  came  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Libanius  and  embraced  the  old  religion.  He  studied 
philosophy  at  Athens  for  a  time,  and  was  a  Neoplatonist  in 
faith.  His  extant  writings  consist  of  eight  orations,  eighty- 
four  letters,  some  of  which  are  spurious,  a  sort  of  satire 
called  Symposium  or  Caisars,  and  a  few  specimens  of  verse. 
The  three  books  Against  the  Christians  and  his  Commen- 
taries on  his  war  in  Gaul  are  lost.  His  earliest  speeches,  in 
honor  of  Constantius  and  Eusebia,  show  little  more  than 
ability  to  imitate  the  classic  models,  but  his  later  works 
show  much  humor  of  a  satirical  nature  and  great  vigor  of 
thought.  His  style  has  been  said  to  show  some  resemblance 
to  that  of  Lucian.  Julian,  who  died  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
two,  and  whose  life  afforded  little  opportunity  for  serious 
literary  work,  was  nevertheless  one  of  the  most  important 
writers  of  his  century. 

After  the  fourth  century  the  ancient  learning  declined 

more  and  more.     In  the  fifth  century  the  school  of  Gaza, 

the  chief  representative  of  which  is  Choricius,  acquired  a 

.  .  reputation  which  lasted  into  the  sixth  century, 

but  the  extant  addresses  by  Choricius  have 
little  value  and  merely  show  that  he  was  well  educated  in 
the  ancient  classics.  Editions  of  ancient  works  and  com- 
mentaries upon  them  continued  to  be  published,  but  these 


452  GREEK  LITERATURE 

are  of  no  literary  importance.  The  novelist  Achilles  Ta- 
tius  seems  to  belong  to  this  period,  and  other  works  similar 
to  his  were  written.  There  were  also  collections  of  spurious 
letters  of  little  interest.  Somewhat  more  important  are 
the  works  of  a  few  lexicographers,  among  whom  Orion  of 
Lexica,  Ori-  TneDes>  in  Egypt,  who  lived  about  425,  and 
on,  Orus,  He-  Hesychius  of  Alexandria,  who  seems  to  belong 
sychius,  Sui-  to  the  fifth  century,  should  be  mentioned.  Ori- 
das,  Photius.  on,g  etymological  Lexicon  is  lost,  but  served, 
with  a  similar  work  by  Orus,  as  the  basis  of  various  mediaeval 
lexica,  such  as  the  Etymologicum  Magnum.  The  Lexicon 
of  Hesychius  is  especially  important  because  it  preserves  a 
great  number  of  rare  words.  Two  much  later  lexica  may  be 
mentioned  here,  because  they  are  based  upon  works  of  this 
time  and  earlier,  that  of  Suidas,  compiled  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, which  contains  much  valuable  information  on  many 
subjects,  including  the  history  of  literature,  and  that  of 
Photius,  who  was  patriarch  of  Constantinople  from  858  to 
867  and  878  to  886  A.  d.  In  his  Lexicon  Photius  uses  good 
early  sources ;  in  another  book,  the  Bibliotheca,  he  gives  the 
contents  of  two  hundred  and  eighty  books,  most  of  which 
are  now  lost.  Along  with  the  lexica  mention  should  be 
made  of  the  Anthologium  of  John  of  Stobi,  in  Macedonia, 
called  Stobaeus.  This  work,  in  four  books,  was 
compiled  apparently  in  the  sixth  century,  and 
contains  selections  from  ancient  writers  in  prose  and  verse. 
It  has  preserved  to  us  much  that  would  otherwise  have  been 
lost.  The  first  two  books  are  usually  called  the  Fclogw,  the 
last  two  the  Florileginm. 

The  historians  of  this  time  are  rhetorical,  pretentious 
chroniclers  or  panegyrists  of  the  emperors.  Most  of  them 
Historians  can  De  Passe^  over.  Eunapius  of  Sardis,  who 
Eunapius,  lived  from  about  346  to  about  414  A.  d.,  wrote  a 
Zozimus,  Pro-  chronicle  of  the  time  from  270  to  404.  His 
copius.  style  is  flowery,  and  his  partiality  for  the  Em- 

peror Julian  is  marked.     The  work  is  only  partially  pre- 


FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  453 

served.  He  also  wrote  twenty-three  Lives  of  Philosophers 
and  Sophists,  biographies  of  the  chief  Neoplatonists  and  of 
some  of  the  sophists  of  his  time.  Zozimus,  in  the  early  sixth 
century,  wrote  a  history  of  the  empire  to  the  capture  of 
Eome  by  Alaric,  in  410  a.  d.  His  work  lacks  breadth  of  view 
and  impartiality,  but  shows  that  he  was  careful  in  acquiring 
information  and  tried  to  write  true  history.  The  style  is 
clear  and  not  tedious,  as  is  much  of  the  writing  of  the  time. 
Zozimus  is  the  chief  source  of  information  about  the  his- 
tory of  the  fourth  century.  Procopius  of  Csesarea,  in  Pal- 
estine, was  a  man  of  much  distinction  in  the  sixth  century, 
and  held  important  offices  under  Justinian.  His  works  are 
the  History  of  the  Wars  of  Justinian  against  the  Persians, 
Vandals,  and  Goths,  which  he  finished  in  554  A.  D. ;  a  trea- 
tise On  Buildings  erected  under  Justinian ;  and  his  Secret 
History.  The  great  work  on  Justinian's  wars  and  the  far 
less  important  one  on  his  buildings  are  accounts  of  the 
emperor's  doings  written  by  an  imperial  official  and  partake 
of  the  nature  of  panegyrics.  Procopius  had  his. revenge  in 
the  Secret  History,  which  is  full  of  attacks  upon  Justinian, 
Theodora,  Belisarius,  and  Antonina,  not  invented  by  Pro- 
copius, but. derived  from  current  talk.  The  three  works 
taken  together  may  give  us  a  pretty  correct  idea  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  time.  Procopius,  though  classed  as  a  pagan 
writer,  is  really  neither  pagan  nor  Christian,  but  a  skeptic, 
who  is  at  the  same  time  superstitious.  His  style  is  Attic, 
with  many  later  elements,  and  also  shows  an  attempt  to 
imitate  Herodotus. 

After  the  historians  one  geographer  is  worth  a  word, 
Stephanus  of  Byzantium,  who  lived  probably  in  the  fifth 
century.  He  wrote  a  great  geographical  work, 
Stephana  of  ^ich  jfi  preserved  only  in  a  much  abridged 
form.  But  even  this  is  important  for  the  in- 
formation it  contains. 

Philosophy,  which  had  attained  a  new  importance 
through  Plotinus  and  Porphyry,  continued  to  live  only  in 


454  GREEK  LITERATURE 

the  form  of  Neoplatonism,  and  Neoplatonism  tended  more 
and  more  toward  mystic  theology.  In  Syria  Neoplatonism 
flourished  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  cen- 
inSyria^nd11  tury, ^s  chief  representative  being  Iamblichus, 
at  Alexan-  who  was  born  about  280  A.  d.  His  extant 
dria.  Iambli-  WOrks  relate  to  Pythagoras  and  his  doctrines, 
ti^Svnesius  an(^  exn^D^  a  spirit  of  exalted  mysticism.  His 
lost  Chaldcean  Theology  was  doubtless  of  a 
similar  character.  The  Syrian  school  disappears  in  the 
fourth  century.  In  the  fifth  century  several  philosophers 
and  mathematicians  acquired  great  reputation  at  Alexan- 
dria. Among  them  was  one  woman,  Hypatia,  who  was 
killed  by  a  mob  in  415  A.  d.  on  account  of  her  alleged  hos- 
tility to  Christianity.  A  pupil  of  Hypatia  was  Synesius  of 
Cyrene,  who  became  a  Christian  bishop.  He  was  born  about 
370  A.  D.,  traveled,  studied  philosophy  at  Alexandria,  and 
returned  to  his  native  Cyrene,  where  he  had  great  estates. 
Even  before  he  had  declared  his  conversion  to  Christianity 
he  was  elected  Bishop  of  Ptolemais.  He  accepted  the  office 
and  filled  it  with  courage  and  ability  until  his  death  in  413 
A.  d.  His  extant  writings  are :  Letters,  Sermons  or  Homi- 
lies, some  Orations  after  the  manner  of  the  sophists,  among 
them  one  In  Praise  of  Baldness,  an  interesting  literary 
essay  called  Bio,  and  ten  Hymns.  Some  of  these  were 
written  before  his  conversion,  others  after,  but  all  show 
much  the  same  qualities  of  dignity,  gravity,  and  poetic 
coloring,  except  that  in  the  more  familiar  writings  dignity 
is  supplanted  by  a  lighter  elegance.  Whether  Christian  or 
pagan,  Synesius  was  filled  with  the  mysticism  of  the  Neo- 
platonists.  The  Alexandrian  school  of  Neoplatonism  con- 
tinued to  exist  into  the  sixth  century,  but  without  produc- 
ing any  writer  or  thinker  of  importance. 

At  Athens  Neoplatonism  flourished  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  and  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  under  Nestorius, 
Plutarch,  and  Syrianus,  who  were  followed  by  Proclus,  the 
last  great  representative  of  the  school.     He  was  born  at 


FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  455 

Constantinople  about  410  and  taught  at  Athens  from  about 
438  until  his  death  in  485  a.  d.  Like  the  other  Neoplato- 
nists  of  the  time,  he  was  a  mystic  enthusiast,  but  he  was  also 

Neopiato-  a  man  of  &reat  learning  and  great  power  of 
nismat  organization.     His  remaining  works  are  Com- 

Athens.  mentaries  on  some  of  Plato's  dialogues,  several 

Procius.  philosophical   treatises,  and   six  Hymns.     He 

reduced  the  Neoplatonic  doctrines  to  fixed  rules,  thereby 
perfecting  the  organization  of  the  sect,  but  at  the  same 
time  limiting  its  further  progress.  His  literary  merit  is 
slight.  After  his  time  the  school  gradually  fell  into  decay. 
In  529  A.  d.  Justinian  closed  the  schools  at  Athens  and 
expelled  the  philosophers.  They  retired  to  Persia,  and 
although  they  returned  and  continued  the  traditions  of 
the  school  for  a  century  longer,  their  efforts  were  in 
vain.  Heathen  philosophy  had  seen  its  day,  and  what 
remained  of  Neoplatonism  was  swallowed  up  in  Byzantine 
theology. 

After  the  second  century  only  two  kinds  of  poetry — 
epic  and  lyric — show  any  life.  The  epic  poems  are  little 
Poetry.  more  than  imitations  of  earlier  works.     Quin- 

Quintus  tus  of  Smyrna  (Quintus  Smyrnaeus),  of  whom 

Smyrnaeus,  little  is  known,  but  who  probably  belongs  to 
phiodor'us  ^ne  ^our^h  century,  wrote  a  poem  called  Con- 
Coiuthus,  tinuation  of  Homer  (Posthomerica),  in  which 
Musaeus.  he  tells  the  events  at  Troy  from  the  death  of 

Hector  to  the  departure  of  the  Greeks.  His  verse  is  cor- 
rect, his  story  well  told,  his  descriptions  good,  and  his 
similes  sometimes  fine,  but  there  is  a  complete  lack  of 
poetic  inspiration.  A  more  talented  poet  is  Nonnus,  from 
Panopolis,  in  Egypt,  who  seems  to  belong  to  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century.  He  wrote  an  epic  in  forty-eight  books, 
called  Dionysiaca,  in  which  he  told  the  fantastic  story  of 
the  march  of  Dionysus  to  India — a  story  which  had  arisen 
from  the  march  of  Alexander  the  Great,  and  had  been 
adorned  with  all  sorts  of  wonderful  episodes.  Nonnus 
30 


456  GREEK  LITERATURE 

shows  great  imaginative  power,  inventive  ability,  and  skill 
in  the  use  of  language.  He  is  sometimes  obscure,  and  the 
rules  of  versification  which  he  introduced  hamper  his 
freedom  of  expression  and  make  his  verse  monotonous, 
though  without  diminishing  its  sweetness.  In  his  later 
years  Xonnus  became  a  Christian  and  made  a  metrical 
paraphrase  of  the  gospel  of  St.  John.  Nonnus  found  sev- 
eral imitators,  chief  among  whom  are  Tryphiodorus,  who 
wrote  a  dull  poem  in  six  hundred  and  ninety-one  lines  on 
The  Sack  of  Troy,  and  Coluthus  of  Nicopolis,  in  Egypt, 
the  author  of  an  insignificant  epic,  The  Rape  of  Helen. 
The  metrical  love  story  of  Hero  and  Leander,  by  Musaeus, 
is  an  imitation  of  Nonnus  only  in  form. 

The  Orphic  poems  which  have  come  down  to  us  are 
chiefly  products  of  this  period,  though  the  strain  of  mys- 
0    ..  ticism  to  which  they  owe  their  origin  can  be 

poems.  traced  back  to  the  sixth  century  b.  c.     Among 

Sibylline  these  the  Orphic  Argonautica  and  some  others 
Oracles.  are  Q^Q  jn  forni)  while  others  are  hymns.     All 

are  more  interesting  for  their  remarkable  and  obscure  ex- 
pressions than  for  literary  merit.  Somewhat  the  same 
character  belongs  to  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  though  these  are 
clearly  the  products  of  Alexandrian  Jews,  while  the  Orphic 
poems  are  purely  Greek  in  origin. 

Lyric  poetry  appears  under  the  empire  in  the  form  of 
epigrams  and  short  songs,  some  of  which  are  of  real 
Lyric  poetry,  beauty.  Even  in  the  sixth  century,  Agathias, 
The  An-  Macedonius,  Paul  the  Silentiary,  and  others 

thoiogy.  were  writers  of  elegant  and  attractive  little 

poems.  Several  of  their  productions  are  contained  in  the 
Palatine  Anthology,  a  collection  of  epigrams  called  Pala- 
tine because  the  manuscript  containing  it  formerly  be- 
longed to  the  Palatine  Library  at  Heidelberg.  The  original 
collection  was  made  in  the  tenth  century  by  Constantinus 
Ceph,alas,  and  additions  were  made  by  the  monk  Planudes 
in  the  fourteenth  century.     In  this  Anthology  several  ear- 


FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  457 

lier  collections,  such  as  the  Garland  of  Meleager  and  the 
Cycle  of  Agathias,  are  contained.  The  Anacreontics  (see 
page  103)  should  also  be  mentioned  at  this  point,  for  they 
date  from  all  periods  of  the  empire. 

The  real  vigor  of  Greek  literature  at  this  time  appears 
only  in  Christian  literature,  especially  in   Christian  elo- 
quence, yet  this  has  its  place  rather  in  a  his- 

ntlrltuTe.       tory  of   Cnristian  thought    than  in  that  of 
Greek    literature.     Only    a    few    words    will 
therefore  be  devoted  to  the  great  preachers  and  other  wri- 
ters of  this  time. 

Athanasius  of  Alexandria  was  born  about  295  and  be- 
came bishop  in  328  A.  d.  From  that  time  until  his  death, 
in  373,  his  life  was  passed  in  the  thick  of 
theological  controversy.  Three  times  he  was 
driven  from  his  see  and  three  times  he  returned.  His  ac- 
tive, strenuous  life  was  passed  in  the  service  of  orthodoxy, 
in  behalf  of  which  his  addresses  were  written.  His  dia- 
lectic is  clear  and  powerful,  his  language  simple  and  un- 
assuming, though,  like  many  early  Christian  writers,  he 
uses  biblical  and*  Hellenic  expressions  side  by  side  without 
really  combining  them.  With  Athanasius  Christian  elo- 
quence is  powerful  and  vigorous,  but  without  grace  and 
elegance.  These  qualities  are  added  by  the  orators  of  the 
second  half  of  the  century. 

Basil  of  Caesarea,  in  Cappadocia,  called  Basil  the  Great, 
was  born  about  331  A.  d.  He  studied  at  Caesarea,  Constan- 
tinople, and  Athens.  From  359  to  364  he  trav- 
eled in  Syria  and  Egypt,  studying  the  forms 
of  monasticism,  which  he  introduced  into  Pontus.  In  364 
he  became  a  priest,  and  in  370  Bishop  of  Caesarea.  As 
head  of  the  Church* in  Cappadocia  and  imperial  governor 
of  Pontus  he  lived  a  life  of  fatigues  and  dangers  for  eight 
years.  His  death  took  place  in  379  A.  d.  During  his  last 
years,  after  the  death  of  Athanasius,  he  was  the  chief  de- 
fender of  orthodoxy  in  the  East.     The  most  interesting 


458  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  his  writings  are  his  Sermons  and  his  Letters.  His  Hex- 
ameron,  on  the  six  days  of  the  creation,  and  his  advice  to 
the  young  On  the  Reading  of  Profane  Writers,  are  espe- 
cially admired.  His  spirit  is  sincere, 'religious,  and  enthu- 
siastic, and  also  generous,  just,  and  kindly.  He  employs 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  Greek  literature  and  philosophy 
in  the  service  of  Christianity  with  the  greatest  skill.  His 
style  is  simple,  but  elevated,  with  unconscious  imitation  of 
ancient  models. 

Gregory  of  Nazianzus  was  also  a  Cappadocian,  and  a 
warm  friend  of  Basil.     He  was  born  about  338  a.  d.,  studied 

at  Caesarea,  in  Palestine,  and  Egypt ;  then  at 
regory  Athens.     At  the  request  of  his  father,  Bishop 

of  Nazianzus,  he  became  a  priest  in  361.  In 
371  he  was  made  Bishop  of  Sasima,  and  in  374  succeeded 
his  father  as  Bishop  of  Nazianzus.  In  379  he  was  called  to 
Constantinople  to  combat  the  Arian  heresy,  and  was  nomi- 
nated for  the  metropolitan  see  in  381.  His  election  was 
contested  and  he  withdrew  to  Nazianzus,  where  he  relin- 
quished his  bishopric  in  383  and  withdrew  to  the  country, 
where  he  died  about  390.  His  works  are  Addresses,  Let- 
ters, and  Poems.  The  Addresses  belong  to  the  years  of 
his  active  life,  the  Letters  and  Poems  to  his  last  years  of 
retirement.  His  nature  was  meditative  and  delicate,  and 
his  poems  have  a  certain  charm,  though  they  are  not  the 
works  of  a  great  poet.  As  an  orator  Gregory  is  less  simple 
than  Basil,  showing  more  apparent  effort  to  produce  effect. 
With  all  that,  his  sincerity  and  earnestness  are  evident. 
These   qualities,   joined  with   imagination  and  learning, 

make  him  one  of  the  greatest  of  Christian  ora- 

NrCssary  °f      tors'     Inf  erior  to  Basil  and  Gre80TJ  of  Kazi" 
anzus   is  Basil's   brother,*Gregory,   Bishop   of 

Nyssa,  whose  importance  is  rather  as  a  theologian  than  as 

a  writer  or  speaker. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  orators  of  this  period  is  St.  John 

Chrysostom,  who  was  born  at  Antioch  about  345  a.  d.,  was 


FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  459 

educated  in  philosophy  and  rhetoric,  became  priest,  Bishop 
of  Antioch,  and  Metropolitan  of  Constantinople,  was  ban- 
ished, restored,  and  carried  off  by  force  into  exile,  to  die 

at  last  at  Oomana,  in  Cappadocia,  in  407  a.  d. 
St.  John  The  details  of  his  life  belong  to  the  history  of 

Cnrysostom.  .  J 

his  times  and  the  history  of  the  Church.     His 

numerous  works  consist  of  treatises,  speeches,  and  letters. 
In  these  he  shows  himself  a  moral  teacher  and  an  orator 
rather  than  a  theologian.  In  his  addresses  he  points  out 
frankly  and  fearlessly  the  faults  and  vices  of  the  times, 
argues  in  reply  to  all  possible  excuses,  and  shows  the  emp- 
tiness of  counter-arguments.  From  him  we  get  much  infor- 
mation about  the  luxurious  life,  the  passion  for  pleasure, 
and  the  selfishness  of  the  people;  the  irreverence  and  care- 
lessness of  the  churchgoers  ;  the  sluggishness  of  some  of 
the  clergy  of  the  time ;  and  his  works  would  be  valuable 
for  this  reason  even  if  they  had  no  literary  value.  But  his 
eloquence  is  admirable.  His  argumentation  is  close  and 
exact,  his  proofs  straightforward  and  simple.  His  manner 
is  sometimes  grave  and  dignified,  sometimes  more  intimate 
and  conversational,  occasionally  even  satirical,  and  withal 
his  speeches  are  filled  with  Christian  love  and  charity.  It 
may  be  said  that  his  style  tends  to  be  diffuse,  but  it  is 
natural  and  easy,  lacking  something  of  the  studied  perfec- 
tion of  the  classic  orators,  but  also  entirely  free  from  the 
affectations  of  the  later  sophists. 

After  Chrysostom,  Christian  eloquence  is  more  practised 
than  ever  before,  but  it  shows  no  real  progress,  and  by  the 
end  of  the  fifth  century  it  disappears. 

Of  Christian  writers  not  oratorical  the  most  important 
is  Eusebius.  He  was  born  in  Palestine  about  265  a.  d.  He 
was  Bishop  of  Caesarea  from  313  until  his  death  in  340,  and 
was  thus  drawn  into  the  controversies  of  the 
time.  His  chief  works  are  historical  and  apol- 
ogetic. His  Chronicles,  in  two  books,  gave  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  history  of  the  world,  with  comparison  of  dates  in  Jewish 


460  GREEK  LITERATURE 

and  pagan  history.  Only  fragments  of  this  are  preserved 
in  Greek,  but  a  Latin  translation  by  St.  Jerome,  and  Arme- 
nian and  Syrian  versions  exist,  by  means  of  which  this 
work,  of  the  greatest  importance  for  the  knowledge  of  an- 
cient chronology,  has  been  handed  down  to  us.  The  Church 
History,  in  ten  books,  gives  the  history  of  Christianity  to 
the  year  323.  The  treatment  is  dry  and  the  style  uninter- 
esting, but  the  idea  of  writing  a  history  of  Christianity  was 
a  new  one,  and  the  work  is  valuable  on  account  of  the  in- 
formation it  contains.  The  Gospel  Preparation  and  the 
Gospel  Demonstration  are  apologetic  works,  distinguished 
less  for  exactness  of  argument  or  critical  faculty  than  for 
diligence  in  collecting  great  numbers  of  extracts  from  an- 
cient writers  and  for  a  certain  breadth  of  view. 

After  Eusebius  Church  history  was  little  cultivated  for 
a  time,  while  apologetic  and  controversial  writings  were 
numerous.  In  the  fifth  century  several  Church  histories 
were  written,  but  they  hardly  deserve  mention  in  a  history 
of  Greek  literature.  The  last  who  deserves  the  name  of 
historian  is  Evagrius  of  Epiphania,  in  Syria,  who  lived  from 
536  to  about  600  a.  d.,  and  wrote  a  History  of  the  Church  to 
Evagrius,  the  vear  594:.  The  latest  controversial  writer 
Cyril,  of  note  is  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  Bishop  of  Alex- 

Theodoretus.  an(jrja  from  412  to  444  A.  D.,  whose  numerous 
writings  in  defense  of  orthodoxy  are  more  interesting  to 
the  theologian  than  to  the  student  of  literature.  His 
Defense  of  Christianism  against  Julian  shows  him  as  an 
adept  in  argumentation,  ingenious,  skilful,  and  honest, 
though  violent  and  even  abusive.  The  last  of  the  great 
doctors  of  the  Church  was  Theodoret,  Bishop  of  Cyrrhus, 
in  northern  Syria,  from  423  to  458.  He  was  distinguished 
as  an  orator  and  also  wrote  an  Ecclesiastical  History,  but 
his  fame  was  due  chiefly  to  his  controversial  and  apologetic 
works.  Among  these  is  the  Demonstration  of  Cliristian 
Truth  according  to  Greek  Philosophy,  in  which  he  compares 
the  views  of  the  Greek  schools  on  philosophical  questions 


FROM  CONSTANTINE  TO  JUSTINIAN  461 

with  those  of  the  Christians.  He  is  not  an  original  thinker, 
but  expresses  the  traditional  views  clearly.  After  Theo- 
doret  Greek  theology  shows  little  life. 

The  long  life  of  ancient  Greek  literature  came  to  an  end 
in  the  sixth  century.  Much  even  of  the  literature  of  the 
time  between  Constantine  and  Justinian  stands  in  no  close 
relation  to  the  literature  of  the  great  classical 
period,  and  after  Justinian  the  Byzantine  pe- 
riod ensues — a  period  of  great  historical  interest  and  im- 
portance, but  not  distinguished  for  its  literary  productions. 
Byzantine  literature  is  voluminous,  but  not  great.  In  spirit 
as  well  as  in  form  it  is  far  removed  from  the  literature  of  an- 
cient Greece.  We  may  therefore  properly  close  our  account 
of  ancient  Greek  literature  with  the  time  of  Justinian. 


APPENDIX  I 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[This  is  not  intended  to  be  an  exhaustive  bibliography,  but  is  merely  an 
attempt  to  refer  the  student  to  the  best  and  most  available  sources  of  informa- 
tion. Books  in  foreign  languages  and  editions  with  notes  in  foreign  languages 
are  mentioned  only  in  exceptional  cases  and  for  special  reasons.  Further 
bibliographical  information  is  to  be  found  in  the  larger  histories  of  Greek  lit- 
erature, in  Engelmann's  Bibliotheca  Scriptorum  Classicorum,  the  monthly  lists 
in  the  Classical  Review,  and  the  Guide  to  the  Choice  of  Classical  Boohs,  by  J. 
B.  Mayor,  London,  1879,  D.  Nutt;  with  its  New  Supplement,  1896.] 

General  Works 

K.  0.  Muller  and  J.  W.  Donaldson.  A  History  of  the  Literature 
of  Ancient  Greece  [vol.  i,  Miiller ;  vols,  ii  and  iii,  Donald- 
son], London,  1858,  Longmans. 

William  Mure.  A  Critical  History  of  the  Language  and  Lit- 
erature of  Ancient  Greece  [epic  and  lyric  poetry,  and  his- 
tory as  far  as  Xenophon],  London,  1850-' 57,  Longmans. 

J.  P.  Mahaffy.  A  History  of  Classical  Greek  Literature,  Lon- 
don, 3d  ed.  1890-'91,  Macmillan,  2  vols,  in  4. 

R.  C.  Jebb.  A  Primer  of  Greek  Literature,  American  Book 
Company  [originally  Appletons',  1878]. 

F.  B.  Jevons.  A  History  of  Greek  Literature  from  the  Earliest 
Period  to  the  Death  of  Demosthenes,  London,  2d  ed.  1889. 
Griffin. 

Gilbert  Murray.  A  History  of  Ancient  Greek  Literature,  Lon- 
don and  New  York,  1897. 

Edward  Capps.  From  Homer  to  Theocritus,  Cleveland,  1900, 
the  Chautauqua  Press ;  enlarged  ed.,  New  York,  1901,  Scrib- 
ners. 

A.  and  M.  Croiset.     Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Grecque,  Paris, 
1887-,99,  5  vols.     [The  best  work  on  the  subject.] 
462 


APPENDIX  I  463 

A.  and  M.  Croiset.  Manuel  d'Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Grecque, 
Paris,  1901.     [An  admirable  work  in  one  vol.] 

T.  Bergk.  Griechische  Literaturgeschichte,  Berlin,  1872-87. 
[Especially  good  on  the  poets.] 

W.  V.  Christ.  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Literatur  bis  auf 
die  Zeit  Justinians,  Munich,  3d  ed.,  1898,  Beck. 

R.  Nicolai.  Griechische  Literaturgeschichte,  Magdeburg,  1873- 
'78,  3  vols. 

F.  Susemihl.  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Literatur  in  der 
Alexandrinerzeit,  Leipzig,  1891-'92,  Teubner,  2  vols. 

S.  H.  Butcher.  Some  Aspects  of  the  Greek  Genius,  London, 
1894,  Macmillan. 

J.  A.  Symonds.  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets,  London,  3d  ed. 
1893,  Black,  2  vols. 

E.  C.  Jebb.  The  Growth  and  Influence  of  Classical  Greek 
Poetry,  Boston,  1893,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. ;  also  Lon- 
don, 1893,  Macmillan. 

R.  C.  Jebb.  Attic  Orators  from  Antiphon  to  Isseos,  London, 
1893,  Macmillan,  2  vols. 

L.  Campbell.  A  Guide  to  Greek  Tragedy  for  English  Readers, 
New  York,  1891,  Putnam's ;  London,  Percival. 

A.  E.  Haigh.  The  Tragic  Drama  of  the  Greeks,  Oxford,  1896, 
Clarendon  Press. 

E.  Rohde.  Der  griechische  Roman  und  seine  Vorlaufer,  Leip- 
zig, 1876,  2d  ed.  1900,  Breitkopf  und  Hartel. 

E.  Zeller.  Die  Philosophic  der  Griechen.  Translated  under 
separate  titles:  The  Presocratic  Schools,  tr.  by  Alleyne, 
1882,  2  vols. ;  Socrates  and  the  Socratic  Schools,  tr.  Reichel, 
3d  ed.  1885  ;  Plato  and  the  Older  Academy,  tr.  Alleyne  and 
Goodwin,  new  ed.  1888 ;  Aristotle  and  the  Peripatetics,  tr. 
Muirhead,  1896  ;  Stoics,  Epicureans,  and  Sceptics,  tr.  Reichel, 
revised  ed.  1880  ;  Eclecticism,  tr.  Alleyne,  1883,  London, 
Longmans. 

E.  Zeller.  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Greek  Philosophy,  tr. 
Alleyne  and  Abbott,  London,  1886,  Longmans ;  New  York, 
Holt. 

Th.  Gomperz.  Greek  Thinkers,  vol.  i,  New  York,  1901,  Scrib- 
ners ;  vols,  ii  and  iii  to  be  translated  from  the  German  and 
published  later. 


464:  GREEK  LITERATURE 

A  useful  series  of  books  called  "  Ancient  Classics  for  English 
Readers "  contains  Homer's  Iliad,  by  W.  L.  Collins ; 
Homer's  Odyssey,  by  W.  L.  Collins;  Herodotus,  by  G.  C. 
Swayne  ;  iEschylus,  by  R.  S.  Copleston  ;  Xenophon,  by  Sir 
Alexander  Grant ;  Sophocles,  by  C.  W.Collins;  Euripides, 
by  W.  B.  Donne;  Aristophanes,  by  W.  L.  Collins;  Hesiod 
and  Theognis,  by  James  Davies ;  Lucian,  by  W.  L.  Collins  ; 
Plato,  by  W.  L.  Collins;  and  Greek  Anthology,  by  Lord 
Neaves.  These  are  not  translations,  but  essays  illustrated 
by  extracts.  Published  in  America  by  the  J.  B.  Lippin- 
cott  Co. 

Collections 

[A  few  of  the  collections  referred  to  below.  These  contain  the  extant 
works  and  fragments  of  works  of  authors  whose  writings  have  been,  in  part  at 
least,  lost.] 

T.  Bergk.     Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci,  ed.  4,  Leipzig,  1878-'82,  3  vols. 

A  fifth  edition,  revised  by  Schroeder,  has  now  (1901)  begun 

to  appear. 
G.  Kinkel.     Epicorum  Graecorum  Fragmenta,  vol.  i,  Leipzig, 

1877. 
A.  Nauck.     Tragicorum  Graecorum  Fragmenta,  Leipzig,  2d  ed., 

1889. 
G.  Kaibel.     Fragmenta  Comicorum  Graecorum,  vol.  i,  part  i, 

Berlin,  1899. 
Th.  Kock.     Fragmenta  Comicorum  Atticorum,  Leipzig,  1880- 

'88,  Teubner. 
A.  Meineke.     Fragmenta  Comicorum  Graecorum,  Berlin,  1847, 

Reimer  (editio  minor,  2  parts). 
R.  Hercher.     Scriptores  Erotici,  Leipzig,  1858-'59,  2  vols. 
C.  Miiller  (and  Th.  Miiller  and  V.  Langlois).    Fragmenta  His- 

toricorum  Graecorum,  Paris,  1841-'70,  5  vols. 
F.   G.   A.   Mullach.      Fragmenta    Philosophorum    Graecorum, 

Paris,  1860- '81,  3  vols. 

[Many  other  collections  of  fragments  and  scattered  writings  exist,  the  titles 
of  which  are  to  be  found  in  larger  bibliographies.] 


APPENDIX  I  465 


Editions  and  Translations 

Achilles  Tatius.    Text  in  Scriptores  Erotici,  ed.  Hercher, 
vol.  i,  Leipzig,  1858,  Teubner  series. 
Translation.    See  Romances. 

Acusilaus.     Text  in  Fragmenta  Historicorum  Grcecorum. 

iELiAN.     Text.     Hercher,  Paris,  1858 ;  Leipzig,  1864. 

^Eneas  Tacticus.     Text.     Hercher,  Berlin,  1870;  Hug,  Leip- 
zig, 1874,  Teubner  series. 

iEscHiNES.      Text.      Weidner,   Berlin,   1872;    Blass,   Leipzig, 
1896,  Teubner  series. 

Translation  of  the  speech  against  Ctesiphon:  Biddle 
(The  Two  Orations  On  the  Crown),  Philadelphia,  1881, 
Lippincott. 

iEscHYLUS.    Text.    Weil,  Leipzig,  1885  ;  Wecklein-  Vitelli,  Ber- 
lin, 1885. 

Annotated  edition.  F.  A.  Paley,  London,  1887,  Whittaker 
&Co. 

Translation.  (Verse)  E.  H.  Plumptre,  London  and  New 
York,  Routledge  ;  (Prose)  Lewis  Campbell,  London,  Kegan 
Paul,  Trench  &  Co. 

^Esop.    Text.    Halm,  Leipzig,  Teubner  series. 

Translation.  Samuel  Croxell,  Boston  and  New  York, 
1863,  London,  2d  ed.  1869. 

Thomas  James,  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  Appletons ; 
also  many  others. 

Caxtorts  iEsop  is  republished  with  a  valuable  introduc- 
tion by  J.  Jacobs,  London,  1889,  D.  Nutt  &  Co. 

Agathias.    See  Anthology. 

Alc^eus.    Text  in  BergJc,  Poetae  Lyrici  Grseci ;  Smyth,  Greek 
Melic  Poets,  London  and  New  York,  1900,  Macmillan. 

Alcidamas.    Text  in  Bekker's  Oratores  Attici,  v,  673-679, 
and  in  Blass's  Antiphon. 

Alcman.     Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Grseci ;  Smyth,  Greek 
Melic  Poets. 

Alexander  Polyhistor.    Text  in  Fragm.  Hist.  Gr.,  iii,  206- 
244. 

Alexis.      Text.      Koch,    Fragm.    Comic.    Att.,    ii,    297-408; 
Meineke,  Fragm.  Comic.  Gr.,  i,  374  ff. 


4:66  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Alciphron.     Text.      Wagner,  Leipzig,  1878  ;  MeineJce,  Leipzig, 

1853. 
Anacreon.     Text  in  Bergk,   Poetae  Lyrici   Graeci;    Smyth, 

Greek  Melic  Poets. 
Anacreontics.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 
Anaxagoras.   Text  in  Fragmenta  Philosophorum  Grcecorumm 
Anaximander.     Text  in  Fragm.  Philos.  Graze. 
Anaximenes.    Text  in  Fragm.  Philos.  Graze. 
Andocides.     Text.    Blass,  Leipzig,  1880,  Teubner  series;  Lip- 

sius,  Leipzig,  1888. 
Anthology.    Text.    Anthologia  Palatini,  Dubner,  vol.  i,  1871, 

vol.  ii,  1888 ;  Cougny,  vol.  iii,  1890,  Paris ;  Stadtmueller, 

Leipzig,  Teubner  series,  2  vols. ;  Mackail,  Select  Epigrams 
from  the  Greek  Anthology,  London,  1900,  Longmans  (text, 

introduction,  translation,  and  notes). 

Translations.     (Selections,  verse)  edited  by  Graham  B. 

Tomson  (Mrs.  R  M.  Watson),  London,  1889,  Scott;  (selec- 
tions,  prose,   with  metrical   versions  by   various   authors) 

George  Burges,  London,  Bohn ;  (selections,  verse)  u  From 

the  Garden  of  Hellas,'1  Lilla  Cabot  Perry,  New  York,  1891, 

United  States  Book  Company. 
Antiochus  of  Syracuse.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Gr.,  i,  181-184. 
Antipater  of  Thessalonica.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 
Antiphon.    Text.  Blass,  Leipzig,  1881,  Teubner  series  (Anti- 

phon,  Gorgias,  Antisthenes,  and  Alcidamas). 
Antisthenes    (philosopher).      See    Antiphon;    also   Fragm. 

Philos.  Grcec.,  ii,  274-294. 
Antoninus  (Marcus  Aurelius).     Text.    Stich,  Leipzig,  1882,  and 

many  others. 

Translations.     Jeremy   Collier,  revised   by  Alice  Zim- 

mern,  London,  1887,  W.  Scott ;  George  Long,  Boston,  1863 ; 

Gerald  H  Rendall,  London  and  New  York,  1898,  Macmillan. 
General  work,  Paul  Barron  Watson,  Marcus  Aurelius 

Antoninus,  New  York,  1884,  Harpers. 
Antoninus  Liberalis.    Text.     Martini,  Mythographi  Graeci, 

vol.  ii,  Leipzig,  1896,  Teubner  series. 
Antonius  Diogenes.    Text  in  Hercher,  Scriptores  Erotici. 
Apollodorus.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  i,  428-469. 
(Apollodorus)   Bibliotheca,   Heyne,  Gottingen,  1782,  2d  ed., 

1803,  4  vols.    Wagner,  Mythogr.  Graec.,  vol.  i,  Leipzig,  1884. 


APPENDIX  I  467 

Apollonius  Dyscolus.  Schneider  and  Uhlig,  in  Corpus 
Grammaticorum  Grcecorum. 

Apollonius  Rhodius.  Text.  Merkel,  Leipzig,  1854,  Teubner 
series. 

Translation.    Preston,  Dublin,  1803,  3  vols. 
(Prose)  Coleridge,  London,  Bell. 

Appian.     Text.    Mendelssohn,  Leipzig,  Teubner  series,  2  vols. 
Translation.    Horace   White,   London  and  New  York, 
1899,  Macmillan,  2  vols. 

Aratus  of  Soli.     Text.     Maass,  Berlin,  1893. 

Translation.     E.  Poste,  London,  1880,  Macmillan. 

Aratus  of  Sicyon.     Text.     Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  iii,  21-23. 

Archilochus.     Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 

Archimedes.  Text.  Heiberg,  Leipzig,  1880,  Teubner  series, 
3  vols. 

Aristides  (^Elius).     Text.    Dindorf,  Leipzig,  1829,  3  vols. 

Aristippus.  Text.  Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec,  ii,  405-418 ;  Epis- 
tolographi  Grceci  (Hercher). 

Aristonicus  of  Alexandria.  Text.  Friedldnder,  Gottingen, 
1853  ;  Carnuth,  Leipzig,  1869. 

Aristophanes.    Text.    Meinehe,  Leipzig,  1860  ;  Blaydes,  Halle, 

1880-'93,  12  vols.,  with  scholia  and  Latin  notes ;   Bekker, 

London,  1829,  5  vols.,  with  Latin  translation  and  scholia.. 

There  are  many  annotated  editions  of  separate  plays. 

Translation.     (Prose)  W.  J.  Hickie,  London,  Bohn,  2  vols. 

(Verse)  The  Acharnians,  The  Knights,  and  The  Birds,  by 

'    Frere,  in  Morley's  Universal  Library,  New  York. 

Aristophanes  of  Byzantium.    Text.     Nauck,  Halle,  1848. 

Aristotle.  Text.  The  Berlin  edition,  5  vols.,  4to,  1831-70 ; 
the  Didot  edition,  5  vols.,  Paris,  1848-74 ;  the  Teubner  edi- 
tion, Leipzig,  not  yet  completed.  The  special  editions  of 
separate  works  are  numerous. 

Translations.  Thomas  Taylor,  London,  1812,  9  vols. ;  R. 
W.  Browne  (Nicomachean  Ethics),  E.  Walford  (Politics  and 
Economics),  J.  H.  McMahon  (Metaphysics),  E.  Cresswell 
(History  of  Animals),  O.  F.  Owen  (Organon,  2  vols.), 
Anonymous  (Rhetoric  and  Poetics)  in  Bonn's  Classical 
Library,  7  vols. ;  Ethics,  J.  E.  C.  Welldon,  London  and 
New  York,  1892,  Macmillan  ;  Ethics,  Robert  Williams,  Lon- 
don, 1869,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. ;  Ethics  (Moral  Philoso- 


468  GREEK  LITERATURE 

phy),  W.  M.  Hatch,  London,  1879,  Murray ;  On  the  Parts  of 
Animals,  W.  Ogle,  London,  1882,  Kegan  Paul,  Trench  &  Co. 
General  work    on  Aristotle :   George   Grote,  Aristotle, 
London,  1872,  Murray. 

The  Constitution  of  Athens.    Text.    Kenyon,  London, 
1891    (facsimile) ;    Kaibel    and     Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, 
Leipzig,  2d  ed.,  1891 ;  Blass,  Leipzig,  1892,  Teubner  series. 
Annotated  edition,  Sandys,  London,  1893,  Macmillan. 
Arrian.    Text.    Dilbner  and  Miiller,  Paris,  1848. 

Scripta  minora,  Hercher  and  Eberhard,  Leipzig,  1885, 
Teubner  series. 

Anabasis,  with  English  notes,  Moberly,  London,  Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co. 

Translation.    Anabasis   and   Indica,    ChinnocJc,   Bonn's 
Classical  Library,  London,  1893,  Bell. 
Asolepiades.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 
Athanasius.     Text.     Migne,   Cursus  Completus  Patrologiae, 

vols,  xxv-xxviii. 
Athenjeus.    Text.     Kaibel,  Leipzig,  1887-90,  3  vols.,  Teubner 
series. 

Translation.     C.  D.  Yonge,  Bonn's  Classical  Library,  3 
vols.,  London,  Bell. 
Marcus  Aurelius.    See  Antoninus. 

Babrius.     Text,  with  Dissertations,  Notes,  and  Lexicon,  Ruth- 
erford, London,  Macmillan,  1883. 

Translation.     (Verse)  James  Davis,  London,  1860,  Lock- 
wood  &  Co. 
Bacchylides.    Text,  with  notes,  Kenyon,  London,  1897. 

Translation.     (Prose)  E.  Poste,  London  and  New  York, 
1898,  Macmillan. 
Batrachomyomachia.    Text.    Ludwich,  Leipzig,  1896. 
Berosus.    Text.     Fragm.  Hist.  Graze,  ii,  495-510. 
Bion.    See  Theocritus  ;  also  Hesiod. 
Cjecilius.    Text.     BurcJchardt,  Basel,  1863. 
Callimachus.     Text.     Schneider,   Leipzig,   1870-73,   2  vols.; 
Meineke,    Berlin,    1861 ;    Wilamowitz-Mollendorff,   Berlin, 
1882. 

Translation.     See  Hesiod. 
Callinus.      Text    in  Bergk,   Poetae    Lyrici   Graeci;    Smyth, 
Melic  Poets. 


APPENDIX  I  469 

Callistratus.    See  Philostratus. 

Cassius.    See  Dio. 

Cebes.    Text.    Praechter,  Leipzig,  1893,  Teubner  series. 
Annotated  edition,  Jerram,  Oxford,  1878. 

Cleanthes.    See  Zeno. 

Corinna.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 

Choricius.    Text.    Boissonade,  Paris,  1846. 

Christodorus.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 

Chrysippus.    Text  and  comments.     Gercke,  Leipzig,  1885. 

Chrysostom.    See  Dio  and  John. 

Clement  of  Alexandria.     Text.    Dindorf,  Oxford,  1869,  4  vols. 

Crates.  Text  in  Meineke,  Fragmenta  Comicorum  Graecorum, 
and  Kock,  Fragmenta  Comicorum  Atticorum. 

Cratinus.  Text  in  Meineke,  Fragmenta  Comicorum  Graeco- 
rum,  and  Kock,  Fragmenta  Comicorum  Atticorum. 

Ctesias.    Text.     Gilmore,  London,  1888,  Macmillan. 

Cyclic  Poets.    See  Epic  Cycle. 

Demades.    See  Dinarchus. 

Demetrius  of  Phalerum.  Text.  Spengel,  Rhetores  Graeci,  iii, 
259-328 ;  Hercher,  Epistolographi  Graeci,  pp.  1-6 ;  Fragm. 
Hist.  Grcec,  ii,  362-369. 

Demetrius  of  Skepsis.    Text.     Gaede,  Greifswald,  1880. 

Demochares.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  ii,  445-449. 

Democritus.    Text.    Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec.,  i,  340-382. 

Demosthenes.  Text.  Blass,  Leipzig,  1885-'89,  3  vols.,  Teub- 
ner series. 

Annotated  edition,  Robert  Whiston,  London,  1859-'68,  2 
vols.     Many  annotated  editions  of  separate  orations. 

Translation.     C.  R.  Kennedy,  Bonn's  and  Harper's  Clas- 
sical Libraries,  5  vols. 

Dic^earchus.  Text.  Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  ii,  225-253.  Geo- 
graphi  Grceci  Minores,  i,  97-110  and  238-243. 

Dinarchus.  Text.  Blass  (with  fragments  of  Demades),  Leip- 
zig, 1888,  Teubner  series. 

Dio  Cassius.  Text.  Melber,  Leipzig,  Teubner  series,  5  vols. ; 
Boissevain,  Berlin. 

Dio  Chrysostom.    Crit.  text.    v.  Arnim,  Berlin,  1893,  2  vols. 

Diodorus  Siculus.  Text.  Dindorf  and  Vogel,  Leipzig,  Teub- 
ner series,  5  vols. 

Translation.     Booth,  London,  1814. 


470  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Diogenes  Laertius.  Text.  Cobet,  Paris,  1850 ;  Holtze,  Leip- 
zig, 1833,  Tauchnitz. 

Translation,  C.  D.  Yonge,  in  Bonn's  Classical  Library, 
London,  Bell. 

Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus.  Text.  Reiske,  Leipzig,  1774-77, 
reproduced  by  Mai,  Leipzig,  1823,  Tauchnitz,  16mo,  6  vols. 

Eoman  History.  Text.  Kiessling,  Leipzig,  1860-70, 
Teubner;  Jacoby,  Leipzig,  1889-,  Teubner  series.  The 
grammatical  and  critical  works  are  contained  in  the  edi- 
tious  of  Reiske  and  Mai,  and  several  have  appeared  in  sepa- 
rate editions.  Vol.  i,  edited  by  TJsener  and  Rademacher, 
appeared  in  1899,  Leipzig,  Teubner  series. 

The  Three  literary  Letters.  Text,  with  English  trans- 
lations, etc.  W.  Rhys  Roberts,  Cambridge  and  London, 
1901. 

Dionysius  Thrax.    Text.     Uhlig,  Leipzig,  1883. 

Dioscorides.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 

Diyllus.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Graze,  ii,  360  f.,  and  iii,  198. 

Duris.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  ii,  466-488. 

Empedocles.    Text.    Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec.,  i,  1-14. 

Ephorus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  i,  234-277 ;  iv,  641  f. 

Epic  Cycle.  Text  in  Epicorum  Graecorum  Fragmenta  (ed. 
Kinkel),  Leipzig,  1877,  Teubner  series. 

Discussion  and  translations.  W.  C.  Lawton,  The  Suc- 
cessors of  Homer,  New  York,  1898,  Macmillan. 

Epicharmus.    Text.    Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec,  i,  135-147. 

Epictetus.    Text.    H  Schenkl,  Leipzig,  1894. 

Translation.  T.  W.  Higginson,  Boston,  1890  (2d  ed.),  Lit- 
tle, Brown  &  Co.,  2  vols. ;  George  Long,  London,  1891,  Bell, 
2  vols. 

Encheiridion  (with  selections  from  other  writings),  T. 
W.  Rolleston,  London,  1888,  W.  Scott. 

Epicurus.  Text  of  fragments  with  Latin  notes.  H.  TJsener, 
Leipzig,  1887. 

Eratosthenes.  Text.  Geographical  Fragments,  H.  Berger, 
Leipzig,  1880 ;  Poems,  Hiller,  Leipzig,  1872  ;  Qatasterismi, 
C.  Robert,  Berlin,  1878 ;  Olivieri,  in  Mythographi  Greed, 
iii,  1,  Leipzig,  1897,  Teubner  series. 

Euclid.  Crit.  text  and  Latin  translation.  Heiberg  and  Menge, 
Leipzig,  1883-'96,  7  vols,  Teubner  series. 


APPENDIX  I  471 

Euripides.    Text.    Nauck,  Leipzig,  3  vols.,  Teubner  series. 
Annotated  edition.    F.  A.  Paley,  London,  1860-74. 
Translation.     (Verse)  Arthur  S.  Way,  London  and  New 
York,  1894-'98,  Macmillan,  3  vols. ;  W.  C.  Lawton  ("  Three 
Dramas  of  Euripides" — Alcestis,  Medea,  Hippolytus),  Bos- 
ton, 1889,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
Eusebius.    Text.     Chronica,  Schone,  Berlin,  1875. 

Praeparatio  Evangelica,  Demonstratio  Evangelica,  His- 
toria  Ecclesiastica,  Dindorf,  Leipzig,  1867-71,  4  vols.,  Teub- 
ner series. 

Scripta  Historica,  Heinichen,  Leipzig,  1868-70,  3  vols. 
Galen.    Text.    Kuhn  in  Medici  Grceci,  vols.  i-xx. 

De  Placitis  Hippocratis  et  Platonis,  Iwan  Mutter,  Leip- 
zig, 1874. 

Scripta  Minora,  Marquardt,  Mutter,  Helmreich,  appear- 
ing in  the  Teubner  series,  Leipzig. 

Protreptici  qua?  supersunt,  Kaibel,  Berlin,  1894. 
Gorgias.    See  Antiphon. 

Gregory  Nazianzene.    Text.    Migne,  Cursus  Completus  Pa- 
trologiae,  vols,  xxxv-xxxviii. 

Translation.    See  Julian  the  Emperor. 
Harpocration.    Text.    Dindorf,  Oxford,  1853,  2  vols. 
Hecat^eus  of  Miletus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  i,  1-31. 
Hecat^eus  of  Teos  or  Abdera.    Text.     Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  ii, 

384-396. 
Heliodorus.    Text  in  Scriptores  Erotici,  ed.  Hirschig  and 
others,  Paris,  1856,  Didot. 

Translation.    T.  Underdowne,  London,  1895,  D.  Nutt.    See 
Romances. 
Hellanicus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  i,  45-69 ;  iv,  629-637. 
Heraclides  Ponticus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  ii,  199-224. 
Heraclitus.    Text.    Bywater,  Oxford,  1877. 
Herod  as.    See  Herondas. 

Herodian,  the  grammarian.    Text.    Lentz,  Leipzig,  1867, 3  vols. 
Herodian,  the  historian.  Crit.  text.  Mendelssohn,  Leipzig,  1883. 

Translation.     J.  Hart,  London,  1749. 
Herodotus.    Text.    Stein,  Berlin,  1884/ 

Crit.  text.     Stein,  Berlin,  1869-72 ;  Holder,  1886,  2  vols. 
Annotated  edition.     J.  W.  Blakesley,  London,  1854,  Bell 
(New  York,  1861),  2  vols. ;  with  German  notes,  Stein,  Ber- 
31 


±72  GREEK  LITERATURE 

lin,  5th  ed.,  1883.    Numerous  annotated  editions  of  separate 
parts. 

Translation.  George  Raivlinson,  London,  Murray  (New 
v  York,  D.  Appleton  and  Company),  4  vols. ;  G.  C.  Macaulay, 
London  and  New  York,  1890,  Macmillan,  2  vols. ;  Henry 
Cary,  London,  Bonn's  Classical  Library ;  New  York,  Har- 
per's Classical  Library. 
Herondas.  Text.  Kenyon,  London,  1891  (facsimile,  1892) ; 
Crusius,  Leipzig,  1894,  Teubner  series. 

Translation  in  J.  A.  Symonds,  Studies  of  the  Greek 
Poets,  3d  ed.  (1893). 
Hesiod.    Text.    Koechly  and  Kinkel,  Leipzig,  1870 ;  Koechly, 
Leipzig,  Teubner  series. 

Annotated  edition.    F.  A.  Paley,  London,  1861. 

Translation.  C.  A.  Elton,  London,  1815  (also  in  1  vol. 
with  Bion  and  Moschus,  Sappho  and  Musaeus  by  F.  Fawkes, 
and  Lycophron  by  Viscount  Royston,  London,  1832); 
J.  Banks  (also  Callimachus  and  Theognis),  prose,  together 
with  metrical  versions  of  Hesiod  by  Elton,  Callimachus  by 
Tytler,  and  Theognis  by  Frere,  London,  Bell.  Bohn's 
Classical  Library. 
Hesychius.    Text.     M.  Schmidt,  Jena,  1858-'68,  4  vols.    Small 

ed.,  1867,  1  vol.  4to. 
Hipponax.    Text.     Welcker,  Gottingen,  1817 ;  M.  Lachmann, 
Choliambica  Poesis  Grsecorum,  Berlin,  1845,  and  Rossignol, 
Fragments  des  Choliambographes  grecs  et  latins,  Paris,  1849. 
Homer.    Text.    Monro,  Oxford,  1896. 

Crit.  text.  Van  Leeuwen  and  da  Costa,  Leyden,  1897,  2d 
ed.,  4  vols. ;  Cauer,  Leipzig,  1887,  1891,  4  vols. ;  Nauck,  Ber- 
lin, 1877,  2  vols. 

Iliad,  W.  Leaf,  London,  1895,  Macmillan. 

Odyssey,  A.  Ludwich,  Leipzig,  1889,  Teubner,  2  vols. 

Annotated  editions,  Iliad,  Leaf,  London,  1886-'88,  Mac- 
millan, 2  vols.  (vol.  i  of  the  second  edition  is  now  [1902]  out) ; 
Monro,  Oxford,  1894,  2  vols. 

Odyssey,  Merry,  Oxford,  1887-'88,  2  vols. 

With  German  notes,  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  by  Ameis 
and  Henze,  Leipzig.  Many  annotated  editions  of  parts  of 
the  poems  exist. 

Translations.     (Verse)  Pope,  Bryant. 


APPENDIX  I  473 

(Prose)  Iliad,  Leaf,  Lang,  and  Myers,  London,  1883,  Mac- 

millan. 

Odyssey,  Butcher  and  Lang,  London,  1879,  Macmillan ; 

Palmer,  Boston,  1891,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

General.    R.  C.  Jebb,  Introduction  to  Homer,  London 

and  New  York,  1892;  W.  Leaf,  Companion  to  the  Iliad, 

London  and  New  York,  1892. 

Grammar.    Monro,  Grammar  of  the  Homeric  Dialect,  2d 

ed.,  Oxford,  1891 ;  Seymour,  Introduction  to  the  Language 

and  Verse  of  Homer,  Boston,  1892,  Ginn  &  Co. 
Homeric  Hymns.    Text.    Gemoll,  Leipzig,  1886,  Teubner ;  Abel, 

Leipzig,  1886,  with  the  Epigrams  and  Batrachomyomachia. 
Hyperides.      Text.      Blass,    Leipzig,    1894,    Teubner    series; 

Against  Athenogenes  and  Philippides,  with  notes  and  trans- 
lation, Kenyon,  London,  1893,  Bell. 
Ibycus.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 
Ion  of  Chios.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  ii,  44-51 ;  cf  Tragi- 

corum  Graecorum  Fragm.  (Nauck),  and  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici 

Graeci,  vol.  ii. 
Isjeus.     Text.      Buermann,  Berlin,  1883;    Scheibe,  Leipzig, 

Teubner  series. 
Isocrates.    Text.    Benseler  and  Blass,  Leipzig,  1882,  Teubner 

series,  2  vols. 

Translation.    J.  H.  Freese,  vol.  i,  London,  1894,  Bell. 

See  Lysias. 
Isyllus.     Text,  with  commentary  in  German.     Wilamowitz- 

Mbllendorff,  1886. 
John  Chrysostom.    Text.    Migne,  Cursus  Completus  Patrolo- 

giae,  vols,  xlvii-liv. 
Julian  the  Emperor.    Text.    Hertlein,  Leipzig,  1876,  Teubner 

series ;  Neumann,  Leipzig,  1880  (anti-Christian  works). 
Translation.    C.  W.  King,  London.    In  Bonn's  Classical 

Library  (contains  Gregory  Nazianzene's  Two  Invectives  and 

Libanius'  Monody,  with  Julian's  Theosophical  Works). 
Justin  Martyr.    Text.    I.  C.  Th.  de  Otto,  Jena,  1875-77  (vols. 

i-iv  of  Corpus  Apologetarum  Christianorum  Sceculi  Se- 

cundi) ;  Apology   (with  notes),  B.  L.   Gildersleeve,  New 

York,  1877,  Harpers. 
Laertius  Diogenes.    See  Diogenes  Laertius. 
Libanius.    Text.    Reiske,  Altenburg,  1784-'97,  4  vols. 


474  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Longinus  (so  called).  .  De  Sublimitate.     Crit.  text.    John  and 
Vahlen,  Bonn,  1887. 

Text,  translation,  and  notes.     W.  Rhys  Roberts,  Cam- 
bridge, 1899,  Univ.  Press. 

Translation.     H.  L.  Havell,  London  and  New  York,  1890u 
Macmillan. 
Longus.    Text.    Hercher,  Scriptores  Erotici,  vol.  i.  \ 

Translation.     (The  Elizabethan  version  edited)  Jacobs,-: 
London,  1890,  D.  Nutt. 
Lucian.   Crit.  text.   Sommerbrodt,  Berlin,  1886-'93,  Weidmann. 
Text.    Jacobitz,  Leipzig,  Teubner  series. 
Translation.     Six  Dialogues,  Irwin,  London,  1894,  Me- 
thuen ;  Dialogues  of  the  Gods,  the  Sea-gods,  and  the  Dead, 
H.  Williams,  London,  Bell,  Bonn's  Classical  Library. 
Lycophron.     Text.    Kinkel,  Leipzig,  1880,  Teubner  series. 

Text,  with  German  translation  and  notes.    V.  Holzinger, 
Leipzig,  1895. 

Translation.     See  Hesiod. 
Lycurgus.    Text.     Thalheim,  Berlin,  1880. 
Lysias.    Crit.  text.     Cobet,  Amsterdam,  1882,  2  vols. 
Scheibe,  Leipzig,  1874,  Teubner  series. 
Annotated  editions  of  selected  orations  are  numerous. 
Manetho.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Graze,  ii,  511-616. 
Marcus  Aurelius.    See  Antoninus. 

Maximus  Tyrius.    Text.    Reiske,  Leipzig,  1774 ;  Dubner,  Paris, 
1840. 

Translation.     Thomas  Taylor,  London,  1804,  2  vols. 
Meleager.     Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 
Menander.    Text.     Koch,  Fragm.  Comicor.  Att.,  iii. 

The  Georgos  (Farmer),  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  Oxford,  1898. 
Mimnermus.     Text,  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Grseci,  in  vol.  ii  (also 

in  several  collections  of  selected  poems). 
Moschus.    See  Theocritus. 
Mus^us.    Text.    Dilthey,  Bonn,  1874. 

Translation.    See  Hesiod. 
Musonius.     Text  and  discussion.    Peerlkamp,  Haarlem,  1822 ; 

O.  Hense,  Leipzig,  1901. 
Nonnus.    Text.    Koechly,  Leipzig,  1857-58,  Teubner  series,  2 

vols. 
Oracula  Sibyllina.    Text.     Rzach,  Vienna,  1891. 


APPENDIX  I  475 

Orphic  Poems  (so  called).    Text    Abel,  Leipzig,  1888. 

Panotitis  (and  Hecato).  Text  of  the  fragments  with  discus- 
sion.   Fowler,  Bonn,  1885. 

Parmenides.  Text  (with  German  translation).  Diels,  Berlin, 
1897 ;  also  in  Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec,  i,  114-130. 

Paul  the  Silentiary.    Text  in  Anthologia  Palatina. 

Pausanias.  Text.  Schubart,  Leipzig,  1853-  54,  Teubner  series, 
2  vols. 

Crit.  text  with  German  notes.  Hitzig  and  Blumner. 
Only  vol.  i,  parts  1,  2,  and  vol.  ii,  part  1,  have  appeared, 
.1896-  Berlin,  Calvary. 

Translation.  J.  G.  Frazer,  London  and  New  York,  1898, 
Macmillan,  6  vols.  (vol.  i  translation,  vols,  ii-v  notes,  vol. 
vi  indexes  and  addenda). 

Pherecydes  of  Syros.  Text.  Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  i,  70-99  ; 
iv,  637-639  (confused  with  Pherecydes  of  Leros). 

Philemon.  Text  in  Meineke,  Fragm.  Comic.  Graec.,  and  Koch, 
Fragm.  Comic.  Attic. 

Philo  Jud^us.  Text.  Mangey,  London,  1742,  2  vols. :  Pfeif- 
fer,  Erlangen,  1795,  5  vols. 

Crit.  text.  Cohn  and  Wendland,  Berlin,  1895,  of  which 
only  the  first  vols,  have  appeared.  Several  editions  of  sep- 
arate works  exist. 

Translation.  C.  D.  Yonge,  London,  Bell.  Bohn's  Ecclesi- 
astical Library. 

Philochorus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  i,  384-417. 

Philostratus.  Crit.  text.  Kayser,  Leipzig,  1870-71,  Teubner 
series,  2  vols. ;  Benndorf,  SchenM,  and  Reisch,  Leipzig, 
1893  and  1901,  Teubner  series. 

Translation.  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  E.  Berwick, 
London,  1809. 

Phocylides  (so  called).    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 

Photius.  Text.  Porson,  London,  1822,  2  vols. ;  Naber,  Ley- 
den,  1866,  2  vols. 

Phrynichus  the  grammarian.  Text  with  Introd.  and  Comm., 
Rutherford,  London,  1881. 

Phrynichus  the  tragic  poet.  Text  in  Nauck,  Tragic.  Graec. 
Fragm. 

Phrynichus  the  comic  poet.  Text  in  Kock,  Fragm.  Comic. 
Attic,  and  Meineke,  Fragm.  Comic.  Graec. 


476  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Pindar.  Crit.  text.  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Grseci,  vol.  i ;  Christ, 
Leipzig,  2d  ed.,  1896,  Teubner  series;  Christ,  with  Latin 
introduction  and  notes,  Leipzig,  1896,  Teubner. 

Annotated  editions,  Fennell,  Cambridge,  1893,  2  vols. 

Olympian  and  Pythian,  Gildersleeve,  New  York,  1885, 
Harpers. 

Nemean,  Bury,  London  and  New  York,  1890,  Macmillan. 

Isthmian,  Bury,  London    and   New   York,   1890,   Mac- 
millan. 

Translation.  (Prose)  Ernest  Myers,  London  and  New 
York,  Macmillan ;  D.  W.  Turner  (together  with  the  metri- 
cal version  by  A.  Moore),  London,  Bell.  Bonn's  Classical 
Library ;  (Verse)  Francis  Cary,  London,  1833. 
Plato.  Crit.  text.  Hermann-  Wohlrab,  Leipzig,  1877-89,  Teub- 
ner series,  6  vols. ;  M.  Schanz,  Leipzig,  1875- ;  not  yet  com- 
plete. 

Annotated  editions  of  separate  works  are  numerous. 

Translation.    B.  Jowett,  Oxford,  3d  ed.,  1892,  Clarendon 
Press,  5  vols. 
Plato  the  comic  poet.    Text  in  Meineke,  Fragm.  Comic.  Graec, 

and  Koch,  Fragm.  Comic.  Attic. 
Plotinus.     Text.     Volkmann,  Leipzig,  1883. 

Translation.      Thomas   Taylor,   London,   Bell.     Bohn's 
Philosophical  Library  (Select  Works). 
Plutarch.    Text.    Lives,  Sintenis,  Leipzig,  1839-'46  (reprinted 
with  corrections  later),  Teubner  series,  5  vols. 

Morals.     Crit.  text.    BernadaMs,  Leipzig,  1888-'95,  Teub- 
ner series,  6  vols. 

Annotated  editions  of  selected  lives  are  numerous. 

Translation.  Lives,  A.  H.  Clough,  London,  1859,  Samp- 
son, Low  &  Co.,  Boston,  1859,  5  vols.,  1880,  1  vol.,  Little, 
Brown  &  Co. ;  A.  Stewart  and  G.  Long,  London,  Bell. 
Bohn's  Standard  Library,  4  vols. ;  Morals,  W.  W.  Goodwin, 
Boston,  1878,  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  5  vols. ;  C.  W.  King  and 
A.  B.  Shilleto,  London,  1888,  Bell.  Bohn's  Classical  Li- 
brary, 2  vols. 
Pollux.  Text.  Dindorf,  Leipzig,  1824,  5  vols. ;  Bekker,  Ber- 
lin, 1846. 
Polyjenus.  Text.  Wolfflin-Melber,  Leipzig,  1887,  Teubner 
series. 


APPENDIX  I  477 

Polybius.     Crit.  text.    Buttner-Wobst,  Leipzig,  1882-'89,  Teub- 

ner  series,  5  vols.;  Hultsch,  Berlin,   2d  ed.,   1888,   Weid- 

mann,  4  vols. 

Translation.    Shuckburgh,  London  and  New  York,  1889, 

Macmillan,  2  vols. 
Porphyrius.    Text.    (Opuscula  Selecta)  Nauck,  Leipzig,  ed.  2, 

1886,  Teubner  series. 
Posidonius.    Text  of  the  fragments  with  discussion.    Bake, 

Leyden,  1810 ;  Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grate,  iii,  245-296. 
Praxilla.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci,  iii,  566-568. 
Proclus.    Text.     Cousin,  Paris,  1820-27,  6  vols. 

Translation.     Thomas  Taylor,  London,  1816, 1820,  4  vols. 
Ptolemy  the  astronomer  and  geographer.    Text.     C.  Muller, 

Paris,  Didot   (in  preparation ;   to  contain  the  geography ; 

other  works  have  appeared  separately). 
Pythagoras  (works  ascribed  to  him).    Text.    Fragm.  Philos. 

Graze,  i,  193-199,  485  ff. ;  ii,  1  ff. ;  iii,  1  ff. ;  Elter,  Gnomica 

fasc,  i,  ii,  Leipzig,  1892. 
Quintus    Smyrn^us.      Text.     Zimmermann,    Leipzig,   1891, 

Teubner  series. 
Romances.    Text.     Hercher,  Scriptores  Erotici,  Leipzig,  1858, 

1859,  Teubner  series;  Hirschig,  Boissonade,  and  others, 

Paris,  1856,  Didot. 

Translation.     Thomas  Underdowne,  London,  1895,  D. 

Nutt. 
Sappho.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Grseci ;  Smyth,  Greek 

Melic  Poets. 

Text  and  translation.     H.  J.  Wharton,  London,  1887,  D. 

Nutt. 
Sophocles.     Text.    Jebb,  Cambridge,  1896;  Dindorf-Mekler, 

Leipzig,  1885,  Teubner  series. 

Annotated  editions.     R.  C.  Jebb,  Cambridge,  1887-'96,  7 

vols,   (with   English  translation) ;    Campbell  and  Abbott, 

Oxford,  1886,  2  vols.     Many  excellent  annotated  editions 

of  single  plays  exist. 

Translations.      (Verse)  E.  H.  Plumptre,   London,  1865 

(New  York,  Routledge) ;  Whitelaw,  London,  1883,  Riving- 

ton's;    L.  Campbell,   London,  1883,  Paul;    Sir  G.  Young, 

London,  Bell ;   (Prose)  jR.  C.  Jebb,  in  his  edition ;  The  Ox- 
ford translation  in  Bonn's  and  Harper's  Classical  Libraries. 


478  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Sophron.    Text  in  Kaibel,  Fragm.  Comic.  Graec. 
Speusippus.    Text.    Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec,  iii,  75-99. 
Stephanus  of  Byzantium.      Text.      Dindorf,   Leipzig,   1824; 

Westermann,  Leipzig,  1839  ;  MeineJce,  Berlin,  1849. 
Stesichorus.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 
Stesimbrotus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  ii,  52-58. 
Stob^eus.    Crit.  text.    Wachsmuth  and  Hense,  Berlin,  1884-'94. 
Strabo.    Text.    Meineke,  Leipzig,  1852-'53,  Teubner  series,  3 
vols. 

Translation.    Falconer  and  Hamilton,  London,  Bell, 
Bonn's  Classical  Library,  3  vols. 
Suidas.    Text.    Bekker,  Berlin,  1854.' 

Synesius.  Text.  Migne,  Curs.  Complet.  Patrolog.,  vol.  lxvi. 
Telesilla.  Text  (fragments)  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 
Theocritus.    Crit.  text.    Ziegler,  Tubingen,  3d  ed.,  1879. 

With    Bion    and   Moschus,    Meineke,  Berlin,    3d    ed., 
1856. 

Annotated  edition.    Snow  (Kynastori),  Oxford,  5th  ed., 
1892. 

Translation.  (Prose)  A.  Lang,  London,  1889,  Macmillan 
(contains  also  Bion  and  Moschus)  ;  J.  Banks,  Theocritus, 
Bion,  Moschus,  and  Tyrtjeus,  with  metrical  versions  by 
J.  M.  Chapman,  London,  Bell,  Bonn's  Classical  Library; 
(Verse)  C.  S.  Calverley,  Cambridge,  1869,  also  in  Calverley's 
collected  works,  London,  1901,  Bell. 
Theognis.    Text.    Sitzler,  Heidelberg,  1880. 

Translation.    See  Hesiod. 
Theophrastus.    Text.    Wimmer,  Leipzig,  1862,  Teubner  series, 
and  Paris,  1866.  ' 

Text,  German  translation  and  notes  by  the  Philologische 
Gesellschaft,  Leipzig,  1897,  Teubner. 

Text  and  translation.    R.   C.  Jebb,  The  Characters  of 
Theophrastus,  London,  1870,  Macmillan. 
Theopompus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  i,  278-333,  iv,  643- 

645. 
Thucydides.    Crit.  text  with  Latin  notes.    Poppo-Stahl,  Leip- 
zig, 1875-'89,  4  vols. 

With  German  notes,    Classen- Steup,  Berlin,   1882-92, 
8  parts. 

Editions  of  separate  books  are  numerous. 


APPENDIX  I  4Y9 

Translation.    B.  Jowett,  Oxford,  1881,  Clarendon  Press, 
2  vols.  (Boston,  1883,  D.  Lothrop  &  Co.,  1  vol.). 
Tim^eus.     Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  i,  193-233 ;  iv,  640  f. 
Tyrt^eus.    Text  in  Bergk,  Poetae  Lyrici  Graeci. 

Translation.    See  Theocritus. 
Xanthus.    Text.    Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec,  i,  34-44. 
Xenocrates.    Text.    Fragm.  Philos.  Grcec,  iii,  114-130. 

Text  with  comment.     Heinze,  Leipzig,  1892,  Teubner. 
Xenophon.    Text.     Sauppe,  Leipzig,  1865-66,  5  vols. 

Annotated  editions  of  separate  works  and  parts  of  works 
are  numerous. 

Translation.     H  G.  DaJcyns,  London,  1890-'94,  Macmil- 
lan,  3  vols. ;  The  Art  of  Horsemanship  (with  notes),  M.  H. 
Morgan,  Boston,  1893,  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 
Zeno    and    Cleanthes.      Fragments.      Text    and    comment. 

Pearson,  Cambridge,  1891. 
Zosimus.    Text.    Bekker,  in  Scriptores  Hist.  Byzant,  1837. 
Crit.  text.    Mendelssohn,  Leipzig,  1887,  Teubner. 


APPENDIX  II 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

[When  two  dates  are  given  they  designate  the  birth  and  death  of  the  author 
or  authors  named  in  the  same  line.  When -one  date  is  given  it  designates  a 
time  when  the  activity  of  the  author  or  authors  was  probably  at  its  height 
Interrogation  points  denote  uncertainty.] 


B.C. 

900-700. 

The  Homeric  poems. 

776  (?). 

Arctinus. 

760  (?). 

Cinaethon. 

About  750  (?). 

Hesiod. 

About  700. 

Callinus,  Archilochus,  Terpander. 
Most  of  the  poems  of  the  Epic  Cycle. 

700-600. 

700-600. 

Creophylus,  Cyprias,  Stasinus,  Agias,  Eume- 

lus,  Pisander. 

About  680  (?). 

Clonas. 

About  660-about  600. 

Thaletas. 

660  (9). 

Lesches. 

About  650-about  600. 

Alcman. 

640  (?). 

Simonides  of  Amorgus. 

About  630. 

Tyrtaeus,  Mimnermus. 

640  (f)-558  (f). 

Solon. 

640  (?)-570  (?). 

Arion. 

About  635-about  555. 

Stesichorus. 

About  625-about  500. 

The  Homeric  hymns. 

624  (?)-547. 

Thales. 

611-545  (?). 

Anaximander. 

About  600. 

Alcajus,  Sappho,  Epimenides. 

About  600-500. 

Xenophanes. 

Sixth  century. 

Abaris,  Aristeas. 

About  590-about  520. 

Ibycus. 

570  (f). 

Eugammon,  Cadmus  of  Miletus. 

About  560. 

Anaximenes,  Susarion. 

556-478. 

Simonides  of  Ceos. 

About  550  (f). 

Asius  of  Samos. 

About  550. 

Theognis,  Demodocus,  Pherecydes  of  Syros, 

Thespis. 

About  550-about  480. 

Chcerilus  (tragic). 

Second  half  of  sixth  cen- 

Pythagoras. 

tury. 

480 

APPENDIX  II 


481 


B.C. 
About  540. 
About  540-0). 
About  540-476. 
About  535. 
About  525. 

525-456. 
521-441. 
About  520-(*). 
About  515-0). 
About  515. 
505  0)-43O  0). 
About  500. 


About  500-about  450. 

500-428. 

497-405. 

492  0)-432  0). 

About  490  0)-422. 

About  485. 

485-405. 

About  485-about  415. 

About  485-about  380. 

484  0)-425  0). 

484  0)-41O  0). 

About  480-411. 

About  480-450. 

About  480-400. 

About  480. 

470. 

469-390. 

467. 

About  465-about  400. 

About  460. 

460  0)-36O. 
About  460-0). 
460-430. 

First  half  of  fifth   cen- 
tury. 
About  450. 


450-423. 
About  450-385. 
447-357. 
About  445. 
446-411. 
About  445-380. 
About  445-400. 


Hipponax,  Anacreon. 

Heraclitus. 

Phrynichus. 

Phocylides. 

Ananius,  Lasus,  Agathocles,  Apollodorus 
(lyric  poet),  Corinna. 

iEschylus. 

Pindar. 

Melanippides. 

Parmenides. 

Onomacritus. 

Bacchylides. 

Charon  of  Lampsacus,  Cydias,  Hegemon, 
Lamprocles,  Myrto,  Pherecydes  of  Leros, 
Pratmas,  Praxilla,  Tynnichus. 

Xanthus. 

Anaxagoras. 

Sophocles. 

Empedocles. 

Ion  of  Chios. 

Epicharmus. 

Euripides. 

Protagoras. 

Gorgias. 

Herodotus. 

AchEeus  of  Eretria. 

Antiphon. 

Chionides  and  Ecphantides  produced  come- 
dies. 

Chcerilus  of  Samos. 

Pigres,  Timocreon. 

Panyasis. 

Socrates. 

Polyphradmon. 

Thucydides. 

Aristias,  Melanippides  the  younger,  Corax, 
Tisias. 

Democritus. 

Evenus  of  Paros. 

Magnes  produced  comedies. 

Leucippus. 

Antiochus  of  Syracuse,  Archytas,  Diogenes 
of  Apollonia,  Hellanicus,  Philolaus,  Prod- 
icus. 

Cratinus  produced  comedies. 

Aristophanes. 

Timotheus  of  Miletus. 

Crates,  the  comic  poet. 

Eupolis. 

Lysias. 

Agathon. 


482 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


B.C. 

About  440. 

Neophron   (tragic   poet),   Sthenelus  (tragic 

poet),  Sophron  (mimes),  Pherecrates  (comic 

poet). 

436-338. 

Isocrates. 

435-380. 

Philoxenus  of  Cythera. 

About  430. 

Aristarchus  of  Tegea  (tragic),  Carcinus  I 

(tragic),    Hippocrates,    Hippias   of   Elis, 
Polus. 
Philistus. 

About  430-about  356. 

About  430-about  354. 

Xenophon. 

About  427-347. 

Plato. 

About  425. 

Alcidamas,  Bion  and  Euphorion  (sons  of 

-5Dschylus),  Philocles,  Stesimbrotus. 

About  420. 

Cynesias. 

About  415. 

Critias. 

412. 

Phrynis  of  Mytilene. 

About  410. 

Aristippus,    Meletus    (tragic),    Xenarchus 

(mimes). 

410  (?)-350  (?). 

Isaeus. 

405-367. 

Dionysius  the  elder  was  tyrant  at  Syracuse 

(tragic). 

About  404-330. 

Antiphanes  (comic). 

Before  400-after  300. 

Alexis  (comic). 

About  400. 

iEschines   (Socratic),  Antisthenes,  Ctesias, 

Euclides  of  Megara,  Iophon  and  Ariston 
(sons  of    Sophocles),  Morsimus   (tragic), 

Phaedo,  Xenocles  I  (tragic). 

About  400-317. 

Phocion. 

About  393-339. 

Speusippus. 

About  390-324. 

Lycurgus. 
iEschines  (orator). 

About  390-after  330. 

389-322. 

Hyperides. 

About  385-319. 

Demades. 

384-322. 

Aristotle,  Demosthenes. 

About  380. 

Astydamas  I  (tragic). 

About  380-300. 

Stilpo. 

About  380-(?). 

Theopompus. 

(?)-about  320. 

Ephorus. 

376-348. 

Anaxandrides  produced  comedies. 

About  375. 

Sophocles  the  younger,  Carcinus  II  (tragic). 

About  375-334. 

Ttieodectes  (tragic). 

About  372-287. 

Theophrastus. 

367-283. 

Ptolemy  I. 

About  365-260. 

Hieronymus  of  Cardia. 

361-262. 

Philemon. 

About  360. 

Astydamas  II  (tragic). 

About  360-about  270 

Pyrrho. 

JEneas  Tacticus,  Archippus  (comic),  Cha> 

About  350. 

remon  (tragic),  Eubulus  (comic),  Xenocles 

II  (tragic). 

About  350-about  280. 

Demetrius  of  Phalerum. 

About  350-af  ter  289. 

Demochares. 

APPENDIX  II 


483 


B.  C. 

About  345-about  250. 
About  344-292. 
Before  342-after  292. 
342-270. 

About  340-about  285. 
About  340-260  (I). 
About  340-about  260. 
About  336-about  264. 
About  335-about  275  (f). 
About  335-261. 
331-232. 
About  330. 

About  325. 

About  325-260. 
(?)-323. 
323  (f)-272. 
321-about  265. 
About  320. 

About  315. 

About  315-about  240. 

About  315-241. 

About  315-about  225. 

(?)-314. 

About  310. 

About  310-240. 

About  300. 


First  half  of  third  century. 
About  295-about  215. 
About  290. 

287-212. 
About  285. 
About  280. 


About  280-205. 
276-195. 
276-187. 
About  275. 

271-213. 
(t)-about  270. 
About  262-185. 
About  260. 


Timasus. 

Menander. 

Dinarchus. 

Epicurus. 

Philetas. 

Crates. 

Duris  of  Samos. 

Zeno. 

Crantor. 

Philochorus. 

Cleanthes. 

Apollodorus  of  Carystus,  Diphilus  (comic), 

Heraclides  of  Pontus. 
Aristoxenus,  Amyntas,  Baeton  and  Diogne- 

tus,  Euboeus  of  Parium. 
Zenodotus. 
Diogenes  of  Sinope. 
Pyrrhus  of  Epirus. 
Craterus. 
Eumenes  and  Diodotus,  Eudemus,   Near- 

chus. 
Sosibius. 
Aratus  of  Soli. 
Arcesilas  of  Pitane. 
Timon  of  Phlius. 
Xenocrates. 

Theodoras  the  Atheist. 
Callimachus. 
Clearchus  of  Soli,  Asclepiades,  Diyllus,  Eu- 

hemerus,   Euclid,  Hecataeus  (romancer), 

Hegesias  (Cyrenaic),  Megasthenes,  Phano- 

cles,  Pytheas,  Rhinthon,  Timosthenes. 
Dicaearchus,  Posidippus. 
Apollonius  Rhodius. 
Antigonus  of   Carystus,  Erasistratus,  He- 

rophilus,  Idomeneus,  Lycophron. 
Archimedes. 

Hermesianax,  Leonidas  of  Tarentum. 
Aristarchus  of  Samos,  Berosus  (?),  Bion  of 

Borysthenis,   Menippus  (?),  Simmias  (?), 

Sotades,  Isyllus  of  Epidaurus. 
Chrysippus. 
Eratosthenes. 
Euphorion. 
Alexander  of  iEtolia,  Ariston,  Hieronymus 

of  Rhodes,  Herodas. 
Aratus  of  Sicyon. 
Strato. 

Aristophanes  of  Byzantium. 
Ariston  of  Chios,  Bion  of  Smyrna,  Anyte, 

Dionysius  of  Heraclea,  Hedylus,  Herillus, 

Istrus,  Persaeus,  Posidippus. 


484 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


B.C. 
About  250. 
247-183. 
240  (?)-157  (1). 
About  240. 
About  230. 

About  215-about  143. 
About  215-about  129. 
About  210-about  120. 
About  210-(?). 
About  210. 
About  200. 
About  185. 

About  185-about  110. 
About  180. 
About  175. 
About  165. 
Before  161-after  126. 
About  160. 
About  150. 

About  135-about  51. 
About  125. 
About  120. 
About  105-after  40. 
About  102-about  20. 
About  95. 
About  90-after  21. 
About  90  or  80. 
About  60-20  a.  d. 
About  33 
About  30 
About  20 

A.  D. 

About  1. 

Early  first  century. 

37-at  least  94. 

About  40-after  112. 

Before  50-about  125. 

50. 

About  50-120. 

65. 

About  95-about  175. 

About  100. 

About  100-165. 

Early  second  century. 

Second  century. 

About  120-about  190. 

121-180. 

129—189 

Before  130-at  least  175. 


Hegesias  (rhetorician),  Manetho. 

Hannibal. 

Critolaus  of  Phaselis. 

Rhianus. 

Dioscorides. 

Aristarchus. 

Carneades. 

Polybius. 

Demetrius  of  Skepsis. 

Alcaeus  of  Messene. 

Apollonius  of  Perge. 

Sotion. 

Panaetius. 

Polemo  the  Periegete. 

Aristobulus,  Moschus. 

Agatharchides,  Crates  of  Mallus. 

Hipparchus  of  Nicaea. 

Nicander. 

Hermagoras,   Hipparchus,  Apollodorus    of 

Athens. 
Posidonius. 
Dionysius  Thrax. 
Antipater  of  Sidon,  Hecato. 
Alexander  Polyhistor. 
Apollodorus  of  Pergamum. 
Parthenius. 
Diodorus  Siculus. 
Meleager. 
Strabo. 

Theodorus  of  Gadara. 
Didymus  of  Alexandria. 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Caecilius. 


Sextius,  Sotion. 

Areius  Didymus. 

Josephus. 

Dio  Chrysostom. 

Plutarch. 

Philo  Judaeus. 

Epictetus. 

Cornutus,  Musonius. 

Arrian,  Appian. 

Quadratus  (apologist). 

Justin  Martyr. 

Babrius. 

Aristides  of  Athens  (apologist),  Dionysius 

the  Periegete,  Longus. 
Lucian. 

Marcus  Aurelius. 
iElius  Aristides. 
Pausanias  the  Periegete. 


APPENDIX  II 


485 


A.  D. 

131-201. 
About  138- 
About  140. 
About  150. 


■168. 


About  155-240. 

About  160-about  215. 

Between  161  and  180. 

Between  165  and  255. 

About  170. 

About  180  (?). 

About  185. 

185-254. 

Late  second  century. 

About  200. 

First  half  of  third  century, 

Third  century. 

204-270. 

About  225  (f). 

About  230. 

233-304. 

About  265-340. 

About  280-about  350. 

About  290. 

About  295-373. 

Fourth  century. 

314-393. 

About  315-386. 

About  330-379. 

About  330-about  390. 

After  330-394. 

331-336. 

About  338-about  390. 

About  345-407. 

About  350-431. 

About  370-413. 

Fifth  century. 


About  410-485. 
412-444. 
415. 

About  425. 
About  435. 
Before  500-after  562. 
About  500. 
Sixth  century. 
About  536-about  600. 
Second  half  of  ninth  cen 
tury. 


Galen. 

Oppian. 

Claudius  Ptolemy. 

Antoninus  Liberalis,  Apollonius  Dyscolus, 

Polyaenus. 
Dio  Cassius. 
Clement  of  Alexandria. 
AthenEeus  born. 
Herodian  (historian). 
Iamblichus  (novelist). 

Sextus  Empiricus,  Herodian  (grammarian). 
Maximus  Tyrius. 
Origen. 

Harpocration,  Phrynichus,  Pollux. 
Philostratus  I,  Xenophon  of  Ephesus. 
Apsines. 

Chariton,  Heliodorus. 
Plotinus. 

Diogenes  Laertius. 
JElian,  Philostratus  II. 
Porphyry. 
Eusebius. 

Iamblichus  (Neoplatonist). 
Philostratus  III. 
Athanasius. 

Nestorius,  Nonnus,  Quintus  Smyrnaeus  (?). 
Libanius. 
Himerius. 
Basil  of  Caesarea. 
Themistius. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa. 
Julian  the  Apostate. 
Gregory  Nazianzene. 
St.  John  Chrysostom. 
Plutarch  (Neoplatonist). 
Synesius. 
Achilles  Tatius,  Hesychius,  Musasus,  Orus, 

Stephanus    of     Byzantium,    Theodoret, 

Tryphiodorus. 
Proclus. 
Cyril. 

Hypatia  killed. 
Choricius,  Orion. 
Syrianus. 
Procopius. 
Zosimus. 
Stobaeus. 
Evagrius. 
Photius. 


INDEX 


[This  index  contains  the  names  of  all  Greek  authors  mentioned  in  the  book,  and 
in  addition  the  names  of  some  historical  and  mythological  personages  and  some 
cities.  Reference  is  also  made  to  numerous  special  topics.  When  several  refer- 
ences are  given,  the  most  important  stands  first.  The  pronunciation  of  proper 
names  is  indicated.    The  titles  of  works  are  in  Italics.] 


Ab'aris,  half-mythical  mystic  poet,  146. 

Academy,  304;  362;  365;  417;  419; 
Old  Academy,  312  ;  361 ;  367  ;  Mid- 
dle Academy,  367 ;  New  Academy, 
367  f. 

AchaVus,  tragic  poet,  242. 

AcJiar' nians  of  Aristophanes,  253. 

Achil'les,  Greek  hero  in  the  Trojan 
War,  12  f. ;  18;  20 ;  30 ;  37 ;  38 ;  39. 

Achil'les  Ta'tius,  novelist,  440 ;  452. 

Actors,  185 ;  in  the  plays  of  ^Eschylus, 
191 ;  195 ;  in  those  of  Sophocles,  205. 

Acusila'us,  logographer,  165 ;  168. 

iEgi'dee,  at  Thebes  and  Sparta,  129. 

uflgim'ius,  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  57. 

^Egyp'tus,  mythical  hero,  41. 

^E'lian,  collector  of  facts  and  anecdotes, 
437. 

jE'lius  Aristi'des,  sophist  of  the  second 
century  after  Christ,  431  f. 

uEne'as  Tac'ticus,  writer  on  military 
affairs,  290. 

^Ene'id  of  Virgil,  39 ;  42 ;  116. 

.jEolic  dialect,  4. 

jEs'chines,  orator,  349-351 ;  343 ;  344 ; 
845. 

jEs'chines  of  Sphettus,  Socratic  phi- 
losopher, 301. 

^s'chylus,  tragic  poet,  189-201 ;  177 ; 
181;  182;  183;  202;  214;  215;  218; 
32 


224;  231;  240;  241;  242;  243;  250; 
378. 

iE'sop,  inventor  of  beast-fables,  86; 
149 ;  441. 

JEthi'opis,  epic  poem,  37. 

Agamem'non,  leader  of  the  Greeks,  12 ; 
21 ;  40. 

Agamem'non  of  ^Eschylus,  198  f. ;  191. 

Agathar'chides,  geographer,  375. 

Aga'thias,  poet  of  the  sixth  century 
after  Christ,  456 ;  457. 

Agath'ocles,  lyric  poet,  138. 

Agath'ocles,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  373  f. 

Ag'athon,  tragic  poet,  242. 

Agesila'us,  King  of  Sparta,  281 ;  283. 

Agesila'm  of  Xenophon,  283. 

A'gias,  epic  poet,  39. 

A'jax,  mythical  hero,  12 ;  21 ;  38. 

A'jax  of  Sophocles,  206  f. 

AlcaVus,  lyric  poet,  92-96;  81;  101 
102;  104;  105;  378;  383. 

Alcse'us  of  Messe'ne,  poet  of  the  An- 
thology, 384. 

Alces'tis  of  Euripides,  227  f. 

Alcid'amas,  rival  of  Isocrates,  339. 

Al'ciphron,  satirist,  435  f. 

Alcmce'onis,  epic  poem,  41. 

Alc'man,  lyric  poet,  109-111 ;  119 ;  121. 

Alexam'enus  of  Te'os,  writer  of  dia- 
logues, 312. 

487 


488 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Alexan'der  the  Great,  313  f. ;  344 ;  351 ; 

355;    366;  372    f.;  374;  375;    455; 

changes  caused  by  his  reign,  357  f. ; 

histories  of  Alexander,   373 ;    425 ; 

439. 
Alexan'der  of  JEto'lia,  elegiac  poet, 

382;  395. 
Alexan'der  Polyhis'tor,  404. 
Alexandria,  359 ;  356  ;  358. 
Alexandrian  critics,  34;  278;  377  f. 
Alexandrian  Library,  359  f. ;  356. 
Alexandrian    literature ;   its    general 

qualities,  359. 
Alexandrian  poetry,  381-399. 
Alex'is,  comic  poet,  261  f. 
Almagest,  translation  of  Ptolemy's  As- 
tronomy, 4A2. 
Amazo'nia,  epic  poem,  41. 
Amazons,  37. 

Ammo'nius,  teacher  of  Plutarch,  419. 
Ammo'nius  Sac'cas,  teacher  of  Ploti- 

nus,  443. 
AmpMara'us,    Driving  out  of,  epic 

poem,  41. 
Amphit'ruo  of  Plautus,  262. 
Amyn'tas,  author  of  Marches  in  Asia, 

371. 
Amy'nus,  medical  hero,  204. 
Anabasis  of  Xenophon,  280 ;  282. 
Anachar'sis,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise 

Men,  148. 
Anac'reon,  lyric  poet,  100-104 ;  81 ;  97 ; 

105;  110;  117. 
Anacreontics,  103 ;  457. 
Ana'nius,  iambic  poet,  85  ;  83. 
Anaxag'oras,  philosopher,  160  f. ;  158 ; 

161;  297. 
Anaxan'drides,  comic  poet,  261. 
Anaxar'chus,  teacher  of  Pyrrho,  366. 
Anax'ilas,  tyrant  of  Ehegium,  120. 
Anaximan'der,  Ionic  philosopher,  151  f. 
Anaxim'enes,  historian  of  Alexander, 

373. 
Anaxim'enes,  Ionic  philosopher,  152; 

162. 
Andoc'ides,  orator,  324  ff. 
Andromache  of  Euripides,  230. 


Androm'ache,  wife  of  Hector,  21. 

Androni'cus  of  Rhodes,  publisher  of 
Aristotle's  works,  316. 

Androt'ion,  writer  on  Attic  history, 
290. 

Ante' nor,  Sons  of,  poem  by  Bacchyl- 
ides,  124. 

Anthology,  456  f. ;  103 ;  384 ;  449. 

Antig'one  of  Sophocles,  207  f. ;  224. 

Antig'onus  of  Carys'tus,  prose  writer 
of  Per'gamum,  377. 

Antig'onus  Gona'tas,  Macedonian  king, 
375. 

Antim'achus,  epic  poet,  57. 

Antim'achus,  epic  poet  of  the  fifth 
century,  267. 

An'tioch,  a  centre  of  Hellenistic  civili- 
zation, 360 ;  358. 

Anti'ochus  of  Syracuse,  logographer, 
169;  168. 

Anti'ochus  I,  king  of  Syria,  395. 

Antip'ater,  Macedonian  regent,  344 ; 
355. 

Antip'ater  of  Sidon,  poet  of  the  An- 
thology, 384. 

Antiph'anes,  comic  poet,  261. 

An'tiphon,  orator,  322  ff.;  271;  325; 
337;  345. 

An'tiphon,  sophist,  296. 

Antis'thenes,  founder  of  the  Cynic 
School  of  philosophy,  302  ;  362. 

Antoni'nus  Libera'lis,  writer  of  tales, 
429. 

Antoni'nus  (M.  Aure'lius),  emperor, 
ethical  writer,  422  f. 

Anto'nius  Diog'enes,  novelist,  439. 

An'yte,  poetess,  384. 

Aph'obus,  guardian  of  Demosthenes, 
341. 

Aphrodi'te,  Homeric  hymn  to,  46; 
hymn  to,  by  Sappho,  99. 

Apollodo'rus,  historian,  403  f. 

Apollodo'rus,  lyric  poet,  138 ;  129. 

Apollodo'rus  of  Carystus,  comic  poet, 
266. 

Apollodo'rus  of  Pergamum,  rhetori- 
cian, 370 ;  409. 


INDEX 


489 


Apollodo'rus,  the  Library  falsely 
ascribed  to  him,  428 ;  404. 

Apollo'nius  Dys'colus,  grammarian, 
441. 

Apollo'nius  of  Per'ge,  mathematician 
and  astronomer,  379. 

Apollo'nius  of  Khodes,  Alexandrian 
epic  poet,  396-398;  393;  librarian, 
360. 

Apologists,  445  f. 

Ap'pian,  historian,  425  f. 

Ap'sines,  rhetorician,  442. 

Ara'tus  of  Sicyon,  wrote  memoirs,  371. 

Ara'tus  of  Soli,  395  f. ;  387  ;  393. 

Arce'silas  of  Cyre'ne,  130 ;  132. 

Arce'silas  of  Pit'ane,  Academic  phi- 
losopher, 367 ;  376. 

Archida'mus,  king  at  Sparta,  334 ;  336. 

Archil'ochus,  iambic  and  elegiac  poet, 
79-83 ;  64 ;  92 ;  101. 

Archime'des,  mathematician,  379 ;  360. 

Archip'pus,  comic  poet,  262. 

Archy'tas,  Pythagorean  philosopher, 
163  ;  153 ;  304. 

Arcti'nus,  epic  poet,  37 ;  38 ;  39. 

Arei'us  Did'ymus,  philosopher,  413. 

Ari'on,  lyric  poet,  who  developed  the 
dithyramb,  112  f. ;  114 ;  119. 

Aristar'chus  of  Sa'mos,  physicist,  379. 

Aristar'chus  of  Sam'othrace,  Alexan- 
drian librarian  and  scholar,  378; 
23  ;  34 ;  360 ;  393 ;  404. 

Aristar'chus  of  Teg'ea,  tragic  poet, 
244. 

Aris'teas,  mystic  poet,  146. 

Aris'tias,  son  of  Prati'nas,  tragic  poet, 
182;  243. 

Aristi'des  of  Athens,  Christian  writer, 
445. 

Aristip'pus,  founder  of  the  Cyrenaic 
school  of  philosophy,  302 ;  361. 

Aristobu'lus,  historian  of  Alexander, 
373 ;  425. 

Aristobu'lus,  Jewish- Greek  writer,  380. 

Aris'tocles,  sophist  of  the  second  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  431. 

Aris'ton,  apologist,  446. 


Aris'ton  of  Chios,  Stoic,  364. 

Aris'ton,  Peripatetic,  321 ;  361 ;  376. 

Aris'ton,  tragic  poet,  son  of  Sophocles, 
204;  243. 

Ariston'ous,  author  of  a  paean,  383. 

Aristoph'anes,  comic  poet,  251-258; 
86  ;  250 ;  260  ;  261 ;  269. 

Aristoph'anes  of  Byzan'tium,  Alex- 
andrian librarian  and  scholar,  378; 
360. 

Ar'istotle,  philosopher,  313-320 ;  42 ; 
312 ;  340 ;  344 ;  361 ;  371 ;  373 ;  376 ; 
377 ;  444 ;  preservation  of  his  works, 
316 ;  404 ;  451 ;  Hymn  to  Virtue,  268 ; 
320. 

Aristox'enus  of  Seli'nus,  author  of  iam- 
bics of  a  comic  nature,  248. 

Aristox'enus  of  Taren'tum,  Alexan- 
drian prose  writer,  376. 

Ar'rian,  historian,  424  f. ;  416. 

Asclepi'ades,  lyric  poet,  383  f. ;  387. 

Ascle'pius,  faith  cure  and  medicine 
practised  in  his  temples,  163;  re- 
ceived at  Athens  by  Sophocles,  204. 

Asia  Minor,  the  home  of  Homeric  po- 
etry, 28. 

Asian  style  of  rhetoric,  370 ;  374 ;  409. 

A'sius,  epic  poet,  57. 

Astyd'amas  the  elder,  tragic  poet,  243. 

Astyd'amas  the  younger,  tragic  poet, 
243. 

Athana'sius,  Bishop,  Christian  orator 
and  writer,  457. 

Athense'us,  author  of  Deipnosophistce, 
437. 

Athenag'oras,  apologist,  446. 

Ath'ens  in  the  fifth  century  b.  c,  179  f. ; 
in  the  Alexandrian  period,  359 ;  361. 

At'talus  I,  king  of  Pergamum,  377. 

At'talus  II,  king  of  Pergamum,  378. 

At'talus  III,  king  of  Pergamum,  400. 

Attic  dialect,  4 ;  108  ;  358. 

Attic  orators,  322-356. 

Attic  prose,  271  ff. 

At'thides,  290 ;  371. 

At' this,  epic  poem,  41. 

Avia'nus,  Latin  writer,  86. 


490 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Ba'brius,  writer  of  fables,  441 ;  86. 
Babylonians  of  Aristophanes,  253. 
Bac'chce  of  Euripides,  234 ;  237. 
Bacchyl'ides,  lyric  poet,  123-128;  110; 

119;  120;  121;  129;  131;  133;  135; 

136 ;  137 ;  201 ;  382. 
Ba'cis,  prophet  and  collector  of  oracles, 

142. 
Bae'ton,  wrote  a  chronicle,  371. 
Banqueters  of  Aristophanes,  253. 
Bas'il  of  Caesare'a,  Christian   orator, 

457  t ;  449. 
Batrachomyomach'ia    {Battle    of   the 

Frogs  and  the  Mice),  mock  epic,  42- 

44. 
Battle  of  the  Gods  and  Titans,  epic 

poem,  41. 
Beast-fables,  85  f. 

Bero'sus,  historian  of  Babylon,  372. 
Bi'as,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men,  148. 
Biographies,  6 ;  376. 
Bi'on,  imitator  of  Theocritus,  392  f. 
Bi'on  of  Borys'thenis,  Cynic,  362. 
Bi'on,  son  of  ^Eschylus,  tragic  poet, 

243. 
Birds  of  Aristophanes,  254-258 ;  252 ; 

253. 
Bronti'nus,  Pythagorean  poet,  144. 
Browning,  137. 

Cad'mus     of    Mile'tus,    early    prose 

writer,  165 ;  149. 
Csecil'ius  of  Calac'te,  rhetorician,  410. 
Callim'achus,    poet,     393-395;     396; 

scholar,  377 ;  376 ;  378;  394;  libra- 
rian, 360 ;  393. 
Calli'nus,  elegiac  poet,  63  f. 
'Callis'thenes,  historian  of  Alexander, 

373. 
Callis'tratus,  author  of  descriptions  of 

statues,  437. 
Capture  of  (Echa'lia,  epic  poem,  41. 
Carci'nus  the  elder,  tragic  poet,  244. 
Carci'nus    the  younger,    tragic    poet, 

244. 
Carne'ades     of    Cyre'ne,     Academic 

philosopher,  367. 


Cassan'der,  Macedonian  ruler,  356 ;  373. 

Casto'rion,  lyric  poet,  270. 

Catalogue  of  Women,  Hesiodic  poem, 

56. 
Ca'to,  Latin  writer,  used  by  Dionysius 

of  Halicarnassus,  409. 
Catul'lus,  Latin  poet,  394. 
Ce'bes,  pupil  of  Philolaiis  and  Soc- 
rates, 163;    308;    Tablet   of    Cebes, 

413. 
Cel'sus,  late  Epicurean  philosopher, 

447. 
Ceph'alas,  compiler  of  an  anthology, 

108. 
Cer'cidas  of  Megalopolis,  lyric  poet, 

270. 
Cer'cops,  a  Pythagorean,  144. 
Chaere'mon,  tragic  poet    and    orator, 

245. 
Chae'rephon,    follower    of    Socrates, 

308. 
Chaerone'a,  battle  of,  342;   334;  343; 

353. 
Chame'l  eon,  Alexandrian  prose  writer, 

377. 
Character  in  Euripides,  236 ;  224. 
Characters  of  the  New  Comedy,  262. 
Characters  of  Theophrastus,  321. 
Cha'res     of    Mytile'ne,    historian    of 

Alexander,  373. 
Char'iton,  novelist,  440. 
Cha'ron  of  Lamp'sacus,  logographer, 

168;  167. 
Chi'lon,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men, 

148. 
Chion'ides,  early  comic  poet,  250. 
Choeph'ori  of  ^Eschylus,  199  f.;  191 ; 

198  ;  208 ;  209 ;  231. 
Choe'rilus  of  Samos,  epic  poetry  of  the 

fifth  century,  268. 
Choe'rilus,  tragic  poet,  182  f. ;  189. 
Choral  lyric  poetry,  105-139  ;  defined, 

90. 
Chore'gus,  184. 
Choric'ius,  late  sophist,  451. 
Chorus  in  tragedy,  184  f. ;   183 ;  en- 
larged by  Sophocles,  205. 


INDEX 


491 


Choruses  of  ^schylus,  191  f. ;  201 ; 
215 ;  of  Sophocles,  215 ;  of  Euripi- 
des, 237  ff. 

Christian  writers,  445-447 ;  457-461. 

Chro'mius  of  Ac'ragas,  130. 

Chrysip'pus,  Stoic,  363 ;  360. 

Chrysoth'emis,  early  poet,  9. 

Cic'ero,  27 ;  108 ;  368 ;  404  f. 

Cinse'thon,  epic  poet,  38 ;  111. 

Cine'sias,  musician  and  dithyrambic 
poet,  269. 

Clean'thes,  Stoic,  363. 

Clear'chus,  Peripatetic,  321 ;  360. 

Clem'ent,  of  Alexandria,  Christian 
writer,  446  f. 

Cleobu'lus,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise 
Men,  148. 

Clitar'chus,  historian  of  Alexander,  373. 

Clitode'mus,  writer  on  Attic  history, 
290. 

Clo'nas,  musician  and  lyric  poet,  89. 

Clouds  of  Aristophanes,  253. 

Colu'thus,  late  epic  poet,  456. 

Comedy,  247-266 ;  its  origin,  247 ;  dif- 
ferences between  it  and  tragedy,  252 ; 
Old  Comedy,  250-259 ;  Middle  Com- 
edy, 259-262;  New  Comedy,  262- 
266;  259;  381. 

Common  dialect,  358  f. ;  314. 

Constitution  of  Athens,  by  Aristotle, 
316 ;  320. 

Co'rax,  Sicilian  rhetorician,  292. 

Corin'na,  lyric  poetess,  138 ;  129. 

Cornu'tus  (Lu'cius  Annae'us),  philos- 
opher, 413. 

Cos,  school  of  medicine,  163  f. ;  of  poet- 
ry, 360 ;  382 ;  387 ;  395. 

Cran'non,  battle  of,  in  322  b.  c,  344 ; 
352. 

Cran'tor,  Academic  philosopher,  312 ; 
361. 

Crate'rus,  collected  decrees,  371. 

Cra'tes,  Academic  philosopher,  312; 
361. 

Cra'tes,  comic  poet,  251. 

Cra'tes  of  Mallus,  critic  and  Stoic  phi- 
losopher at  Pergamum,  378. 


Cra'tes  of  Thebes,  Cynic,  362 ;  author 

of  satires  and  parodies,  268. 
Crati'nus,  comic  poet,  250 ;  268. 
Crat'ylus,  teacher  of  Plato,  303. 
Creoph'ylus,  epic  poet,  37  ;  41 ;  57. 
Crit'ias,  leader  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants, 

tragic  poet,  244 ;  elegiac  poet,  268 ; 

perhaps  author  of  the  State  of  the 

Athenians,  271 ;  303. 
Cri'to,  friend  of  Socrates,  307 ;  308. 
Critola'iis    of   Phase'lis,    Peripatetic, 

321 ;  361. 
Cte'sias,  historian,  177  f. 
Ctes'iphon,    proposed    a    crown    for 

Demosthenes,  343 ;  350. 
Cy' clops  of  Euripides,  235. 
Cy'dias,  lyric  poet,  138  ;  270. 
Cyn'ic  school  of  philosophy,  302 ;  362 ; 

443. 
Cyp'ria,  epic  poem,  37. 
Cyp'rias,  epic  poet,  37. 
Cyrena'ic  School  of  philosophy,  302 ; 

361. 
Cyr'il,    Bishop,    theological    writer, 

460. 
Cyropcedi'a  of  Xenophon,  284  f. 

Dai'tales  of  Aristophanes,  253. 

Dan'ais,  epic  poem,  41. 

Dan'atls,  mythical  hero,  41 ;  191  ff. 

Delphic  oracle,  140  ;  153 ;  420 ;  Delphic 
paeans,  383 ;  Delphic  school  of  po- 
etry, 9. 

Dema'des,  orator,  340 ;  344. 

Deme'trius  of  Phale'rum,  oratorrstates- 
man,  and  man  of  letters,  356;  86  '■> 
354;  359. 

Deme'trius  Poliorce'tes,  Macedonian, 
354;  356. 

Deme'trius  of  Skep'sis,  wrote  on  an- 
tiquities of  the  Troad,  371. 

Democh'ares,  historian,  373. 

Democ'ritus,  philosopher,  162  f. ;  155 ; 
160;  163;  365;  366. 

Demod'ocus,  elegiac  poet,  77. 

De'mophon,  guardian  of  Demosthenes, 
341. 


492 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Demos'thenes,  orator,  340-348 ;  177 ; 
261 ;  276  ;  329  ;  332 ;  336  ;  350 ;  351 ; 
352 ;  353  ;  354 ;  355 ;  356 ;  373 ;  409  ; 
432 ;  450. 

Deus  ex  machina,  222  f. 

Dex'ion,  name  given  to  Sophocles,  204. 

Diad'ochi,    successors   of   Alexander, 

-    373. 

Diag'oras  of  Melos,  lyric  poet,  270. 

Dialect,  4 ;  of  Homer,  27 ;  epic,  32  ;  of 
Hesiod,  49;  of  elegiac  and  iambic 
verse,  63 ;  of  Pindar,  135 ;  of  Aris- 
totle, 314 ;  common,  358  f. ;  314. 

Dialectic,  299. 

Dialogues,  of  Plato,  306  f. ;  of  Lucian, 
434. 

Dicsear'chus,  geographer  and  histori- 
an, 372 ;  375. 

Did'ymus  (Arei'us),  philosopher,  413. 

Did'ymus,  grammarian,  404. 

Dieu'chidas  of  Megara,  27. 

Dinar'chus,  orator,  354;  409. 

Di'o  Cas'sius,  historian,  426  f. 

Di'o  Chrys'ostom,  philosopher,  417  f. ; 
431. 

Diodo'rus,  son  of  Xen'ophon,  281. 

Diodo'rus  Sic'ulus,  historian,  407  f. ; 
289 ;  374 ;  379. 

Diod'otus,  edited  Alexander's  Journals, 
371. 

Diog'enes  of  Apollo'nia,  philosopher, 
162;  158. 

Diog'enes  Lae'rtius,  writer  of  Lives  of 
Philosophers,  428 ;  377. 

Diog'enes  of  Sino'pe,  Cynic,  362. 

Diogne'tus,  chronicle  writer,  371. 

Di'on,  friend  of  Plato,  287  ;  304. 

Dionysiac  festivals  at  Athens,  183  f. 

Dionys'ius  of  Halicarnas'sus,  historian 
and  rhetorician,  408  f. ;  98. 

Dionys'ius  of  Heracle'a,  Stoic,  364. 

Dionys'ius,  pupil  of  Heracli'des  of 
Pontus,  writer  of  tragedies  under 
false  names,  245. 

Dionys'ius  the  elder,  tyrant  of  Syra- 
cuse, tragic  poet,  245 ;  304 ;  336. 

Dionys'ius  the  Periegete,  441. 


Dionys'ius  Thrax,  grammarian,  404. 

Dionys'ius  II,  of  Syracuse,  287  ;  304. 

Diony'sus,  worshipped  with  dithy- 
rambs, 113. 

Dioscor'ides,  poet  of  the  Anthology, 
384. 

Diph'ilus,  comic  poet,  266. 

Dith'yramb,  107 ;  113  ;  120 ;  126 ;  131 ; 
180 ;  269,  382. 

Divisions  of  comedy,  259. 

Divisions  of  Greek  plays,  188. 

Diyl'lus,  historian,  373. 

Doctors  of  the  Church,  446  f. 

Dodo'na,  oracle,  140. 

Doric  dialect,  4 ;  108 ;  135. 

Drama,  its  origin  and  development, 
179-188. 

Du'ris  of  Sa'mos,  historian,  373. 

Earliest  poetry,  7. 
Ecclesiazu' sob  of  Aristophanes,  254. 
Ecphan'tides,  early  comic  poet,  250. 
Eleatic  school  of  philosophy,  154 ;  159 ; 

301 ;  302. 
Elec'tra  of  Sophocles,  208  f. ;  231. 
Elec'tra  of  Euripides,  231 ;  225. 
Elegiac  poetry,  60;  63-78;  80;  of  the 

Attic  period,  268;  of  the  Alexan- 
drian period,  382  f. 
Emped'ocles,    philosopher,     158-160 ; 

144 ;  294. 
Encomia,  107 ;  120 ;  121 ;  131 ;  133. 
En'nius,  Latin  poet,  244. 
Ece'ce,  Hesiodic  poems,  56  ;  Great  Fo&'ce, 

56. 
Eph'orus,  historian,  288  ff. ;  169;  334; 

373  ;  402 ;  407. 
Epic  Cycle,  35^2. 

Epic  poetry  of  the  Attic  period,  267  f. 
Epichar'mus,  early  comic  poet,  248  f. 
Epicte'tus,    philosopher    and    ethical 

teacher,  416  f.;  413;  423;  424. 
Epicu'rus,  founder  of  the  Epicurean 

School  of  philosophy,  364  ff.;  160; 

372 ;  Epicurean  doctrines,  365  f. 
Epideictic  oratory,  332 ;  334. 
Epig'oni,  epic  poem,  41. 


INDEX 


493 


Epigrams,  78;  383  f.;  in  the  second 
and  third  centuries  after  Christ,  440. 

Epimen'ides,  religious  poet  and  giver 
of  oracles,  142 ;  68 ;  148. 

Epinician  odes,  107;  120;  121;  133; 
134  ff. 

Erasis'tratus,  physician,  379. 

Eratos'thenes,  Athenian  accused  by 
Lyssias,  327  ff. 

Eratos'thenes,  librarian,  man  of  learn- 
ing, and  poet,  376 ;  360 ;  371 ;  378 ; 
383;  396. 

Ethics  of  Aristotle,  318 ;  of  Epicurus, 
365. 

Etymolog'icum  Mag'num,  452. 

Eubce'us  of  Parium,  writer  of  parodies, 
268. 

Eubu'lus,  comic  poet,  262. 

Eucli'des,  founder  of  the  Megarian 
school  of  philosophy,  301 ;  304 ;  361. 

Eucli'des,  mathematician,  378. 

Eude'mus,  Peripatetic,  321 ;  318. 

Eugam'mon,  epic  poet,  40. 

Euhe'merus,  romancer,  380. 

Eume'lus,  epic  poet,  41. 

Eu'menes,  edited  Alexander's  Jour- 
nals, 371. 

Eumen'ides  of  ^Eschylus,  200;  191; 
198;  209. 

Euna'pius,  late  historian  and  biogra- 
pher, 452  f. ;  449. 

Euphor'ion  of  Chalcis,  librarian  at  An- 
tioch,  360 ;  author  of  mythological 
epics,  398. 

Euphor'ion,  son  of  iEschylus,  tragic 
poet,  243. 

Eu'polis,  comic  poet,  251. 

Eurip'ides,  tragic  poet,  219-240;  201; 
249. 

Euse'bius,  historian  and  Christian 
apologist,  459  f . ;  41. 

Evag'oras,  Cypriote  king,  334. 

Evag'rius,  Church  historian,  460. 

Eve'nus  of  Paros,  elegiac  poet,  268. 

Fa'bius  Max'imus,  Latin  historian,  409. 
Farces,  385. 


Farmer  of  Menander,  264  ff. 
Frogs  of  Aristophanes,  254. 

Ga'len,  physician,  442  f. 

Games  at  Olym'pia,  Cor'inth,  Del'phi, 
Nem'ea,  etc.,  132  f. 

Geographers,  375. 

Gor'gias,  sophist,  294;  295;  297;  298; 
307 ;  308 ;  333 ;  335 ;  337 ;  339 ;  345 ; 
431. 

Graeco-Koman  literature,  its  divisions, 
406  f. 

Grammar  and  grammarians,  377 ;  441. 

Greek  literature,  its  importance,  1; 
divisions,  2;  periods,  3;  preserva- 
tion, 5 ;  decline,  448  ff. 

Greg'ory  Nazian'zene,  Christian  wri- 
ter, 458 ;  449. 

Greg'ory  of  Nys'sa,  Christian  writer, 
458. 

Grenfell  papyrus,  386  f. 

Grote,  views  on  Homer,  25. 

Gryl'lus,  son  of  Xenophon,  281. 

Han'nibal,  wrote  memoirs,  371. 

Har'palus,  took  money  from  Alexan- 
der and  came  to  Athens,  344 ;  351. 

Harpocra'tion,  compiler  of  a  lexicon, 
442. 

Hecatae'us  of  Abde'ra  or  Te'os,  ro- 
mancer, 379  f. 

Hecatse'us  of  Mile'tus,  logographer, 
166  f.;  169;  173;  380. 

Hec'ato,  Stoic  philosopher,  404. 

Hec'tor,  Trojan  hero,  12 ;  13 ;  18 ;  21 ; 
29;  39. 

Hec'uba  of  Euripides,  229. 

Hed'ylus,  lyric  poet,  384. 

Hege'mon,  writer  of  a  mock  epic, 
268. 

Hege'sias,  Cyrenaic  philosopher,  361. 

Hege'sias,  epic  poet,  37. 

Hege'sias,  rhetorician,  370 ;  373  ;  374. 

Helen,  11;  12;  15;  25;  37. 

Helena  of  Euripides,  23l ;  222. 

Heliodo'rus,  novelist,  439  f. 

Hellani'cus,  Alexandrian  critic,  23. 


494 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Hellani'cus,  logographer,  168  f. ;   38; 

174 ;  290  ;  371. 
Helle'nica  of  Xenophon,  282  f. 
Hellenistic    centres    of   culture,  360; 

358. 
Hellenistic  civilization,  357  ff. 
Heraclei'a,  epic  poem,  41. 
Her'acles,  poem  by  Bacchylides,  125. 
Heracli 'doe,  of  Euripides,  228  f. ;  227. 
Heracli'des  of  Pontus,  philosopher  and 

tragic  poet,  377 ;  author  of  the  frag- 
ments preserved  under  the  name  of 

Thespis,  245. 
Heracli'tus,  philosopher,  155  f. ;  144 ; 

157  ;  159  ;  162  ;  293  ;  297 ;  303 ;  363  ; 

364. 
Her'cules  Fu'rens  of  Euripides,  230. 
Heril'lus  of  Carthage,  Stoic,  364. 
Hermag'oras,  rhetorician,  370. 
Hermesi'onax,  elegiac  poet,  382. 
Hermip'pus,  comic  and  satirical  poet, 

268. 
Hermog'enes  of  Tar'sus,  rhetorician, 

442. 
Hero'das  (Heron'das),  poet  of  mimes, 

386 ;  389. 
Hero'des  At'ticus,  sophist  of  the  sec- 
ond century  after  Christ,  431. 
Hero'dian,  grammarian,  441. 
Hero'dian,  historian,  427. 
Herod'icus,  a  Pythagorean  poet,  144. 
Herod'otus,  historian,  171-177 ;  86 ;  96 ; 

142  ;  165  ;  167  ;  168  ;  169  ;  178  ;  183  ; 

267';  274  ;  276  ;  453. 
Heroic  Theogamies,  epic  poem,  41. 
Heroph'ilus,  physician,  379. 
He'siod,   49-57;    9;    150;    165;    175; 

378. 
Hesych'ius,  lexicographer,  452. 
Hi'ero,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  120;  123; 

127;  130;  132;  135;  189;  190. 
Hi'ero  II  of  Syracuse,  360  ;  374;  388. 
Hieron'ymus  of  Car'dia,  historian,  373. 
Hieron'ymus  of  Khodes,  Peripatetic, 

321. 
Hime'rius,  late  sophist,  449. 
Hippar'chus,  geographer,  376. 


Hippar'chus,  son  of  Pisis'tratus,  101 1 
138. 

Hip'pias  of  Elis,  sophist,  295  ;  307. 

Hip'pias,  son  of  Pisistratus,  101. 

Hippoc'rates,  physician,  163  f. ;  379. 

Hippol'ytus,  Christian  writer,  447. 

Hippol'ytus  of  Eurip'ides,  229. 

Hippo'nax,  choliambic  poet,  84  f. 

History,  first  use  of  the  word,  165. 

Ho'mer,  10-34 ;  7 ;  35 ;  36  ;  37 ;  40  ;  41 
42;  45;  49;  50;  57;  81;  116;  175 
268  ;  302  ;  308 ;  313 ;  378  ;  418 ;  431 
Homeric    Hymns,  44-48;    the    Ho- 
meric question,  23-34 ;  Homeric  civi- 
lization, 30. 

Hor'ace,  81 ;  95  ;  96 ;  163 ;  181. 

Hyag'nis,  mythical  musician,  87. 

Hymns,    107;    121;    131;    268;    383; 
.394  f. 

Hypa'tia,  Neoplatonist,  454. 

Hyperi'des,  orator,  351-353 ;  334 ;  344 ; 
354. 

Hyporcheme,  107 ;  121 ;  126  ;  131. 

Iambic  poetry,  79-85. 
Iam'blichus,  Neoplatonist,  454. 
Iam'blichus,  novelist,  439. 
Ib'ycus,  lyric  poet,  117  f. ;  121. 
I' das,  poem  by  Bacchylides,  125. 
Ideas,  Plato's  theory  of,  305. 
Idom'eneus,  writer  of  biographies  of 

Athenian  demagogues,  372. 
Idylls,  387  ff 
Iliad,  10  ff.;  40;  42;  44;  140;  377; 

399. 
Imitations  of  earlier  writings,  380. 
Innovations  of  Euripides,  221  ff. 
I'o,  poem  by  Bacchylides,  125. 
I'on  of  Chi'os,  tragic  poet,  241 ;  lyric 

poet,  270. 
I'on  of  Euripides,  232. 
Ionic  dialect,  4. 
I'ophon,  tragic  poet,  son  of  Sophocles, 

243 ;  204. 
IpMge'nia  among    the  Taurians,  by 

Euripides,  232 ;  222. 
Iphige'nia  at  Aulis,  by  Euripides,  234. 


INDEX 


495 


Irense'us,  apologist,  446. 

Isse'us,  orator,  330-332 ;  323  ;  334 ;  409. 

Isoc'rates,    essayist,    rhetorician,   and 

teacher,  261 ;   288 ;   289  ;    290 ;  302 ; 

332 ;  333-339  ;  347  ;  351 ;  353 ;  409. 
ls'trus,  compiler  of  Atthides,  371. 
Isyl'lus,  Epidaurian  writer  of  a  paean, 


Ja'son,  King  of  Phe'rse,  334 ;  336. 

Jewish  writings,  142. 

John  Chrys'ostom,  Saint,  Christian 
orator,  458  f. 

Jose'phus,  historian,  411  f. 

Ju'lian  the  Apostate,  emperor  and  au- 
thor, 451 ;  450  ;  452. 

Ju'lius  Africa'nus,  Christian  chronicle 
writer,  447. 

Jus'tin  Martyr,  Christian  writer,  445  f. 

Kirehhoff,  views  on  Homer,  25. 
Knights  of  Aristophanes,  253. 

Lachmann,  views  on  Homer,  25. 

Lamian  War,  352. 

Laoc'oon,  39. 

La'sus  of  Hermi'one,  lyric  poet,  138  ; 

129. 
Leoc'rates,  deserter  at  Chaerone'a,  353. 
Leon'idas  of  Tarentum,  lyric  poet,  384. 
Les'ches,  epic  poet,  38. 
Leucip'pus,    philosopher,    160;    158; 

162;  163. 
Lexicons,  441 ;  452. 
Liba'nius,  late  sophist,  449  f. 
Library  at  Alexandria,  356. 
Li'nus,  mythical  poet,  8 ;  144. 
Little  Iliad,  epic  poem,  38 ;  212. 
Logic  of  Aristotle,  317. 
Logographers,  early   prose  writers  of 

history,  165-169;  172;   177;  speech 

writers,  326;  327;  333;   345;    351; 

354. 
Longi'nus,  rhetorician,  442;  98;  409; 

444. 
Long'us,  novelist,  440. 
Lu'cian,  satirist,  432-435 ;  362 ;  451. 


Lyce'um,  314 ;  361 ;  365. 

Ly'con,  Peripatetic,  361. 

Ly'cophron,  learned  poet,  399 ;  393. 

Lycur'gus,  orator,  353  f. ;  334  ;  344. 

Lyric  poetry,  58-139 ;  its  character,  58 ; 
its  development,  59;  its  metres,  59 
ff.;  of  the  Attic  period,  268  ff;  of 
the  sixth  century  after  Christ,  456. 

Lys'ias,  orator,  326  ff. ;  308 ;  325 ;  335 ; 
345 ;  409. 

Lysis' trata  of  Aristophanes,  254. 

Macedo'nius,  poet  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  456. 

Madness  of  Ber'acles,  by  Euripides, 
230. 

Mae'son,  a  character  in  Megarian  com- 
edy, 248. 

Mag'nes,  comic  poet,  250. 

Man'etho,  historian  of  Egypt,  372. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  emperor,  ethical 
writer,  422  f. ;  430 ;  437. 

Margi'tes,  mock  epic,  42,  44. 

Marriage  of  Ce'yx,  poem  ascribed  to 
Hesiod,  57. 

Mar'syas,  mythical  musician,  87. 

Max'imus  Tyr'ius,  sophist  of  the  sec- 
ond century  after  Christ,  431. 

Mede'a  of  Euripides,  228 ;  223. 

Medicine,  163  f . ;  in  the  Alexandrian 
period,  379 ;  in  the  second  century 
after  Christ,  442. 

Meg'acles,  a  wealthy  Athenian,  132. 

Mega'rian  school  of  philosophy,  302 ; 
361 ;  362. 

Megas'thenes,  geographer,  375. 

Melampod'ia,  poem  ascribed  to  Hesi- 
od, 57. 

Melanip'pides,  dithyrambic  poet,  269 ; 
270. 

Melanip'pides  the  younger,  dithyram- 
bic poet,  269. 

Mele'ager,  poet  of  the  Anthology,  384 
f. ;  457. 

Me'les,  musician,  269. 

Mele'tus,  accuser  of  Socrates,  tragic 
poet,  244. 


496 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Melic  poetry,  90-138 ;  defined,  90. 

Melis'sus,  follower  of  Parmenides,  157. 

Memoirs,  370  f. 

Memorabilia  of  Xenophon,  285. 

Menan'der,  comic  poet,  264  ff. ;  261; 
263;  321. 

Menan'der  of  Laodice'a,  rhetorician, 
442. 

Menede'mus,  philosopher,  302. 

Menip'pus,  Cynic,  362  ;  384 ;  435. 

Messengers'  reports  in  Sophocles,  216 
f. ;  225 ;  in  Euripides,  225. 

Metaphysics  of  Aristotle,  320. 

Metho'dius,  Christian  writer,  447. 

Middle  Academy,  367. 

Middle  Comedy,  259-262. 

Mile'tus,  its  destruction  in  494  B.C., 
167. 

Mi'lo  of  Cro'ton,  a  wrestler,  132. 

Milti'ades,  apologist,  446. 

Mimes,  386  f. 

Mimner'mus,  elegiac  poet,  66  f. ;  72. 

Min'yas,  epic  poem,  41. 

Modes  in  music,  89  f. 

Monodic  poetry,  90-104;  105;  de- 
fined, 90 ;  metres  and  stanzas,  91. 

Monodies  of  Euripides,  237. 

Mor'simus,  tragic  poet,  243. 

Mos'chus,  imitator  of  Theocritus,  392  f. 

Musse'us,  mythical  poet,  146  f . ;  142; 
143;  144. 

Musse'us,  poet  of  the  fifth  century  after 
Christ,  456. 

Muses,  7. 

Music,  87-91 ;  at  Lesbos,  92. 

Musical  modes,  89  f. 

Muso'nius,  Stoic  philosopher,  413 ;  416. 

Myl'lus,  a  character  in  Megarian  com- 
edy, 248. 

Myr'silus  of  Mytile'ne,  92 ;  93 ;  94. 

Myr'to  (Myr'tis)  lyric  poetess,  139; 
129;  138. 

My'son,  one  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men, 
148. 

Mysteries,  of  Eleusis,  Samothrace,  etc., 
143 ;  145  f. 

Mythical  poets,  8. 


Nausic'aa,  a  character  in  the  Odyssey, 

15;  22. 
Near'chus,  pilot  and  historian  of  Alex- 

der,  373  ;  geographer,  375. 
Ne'leus  of  Skepsis,  316. 
Ne'ophron,  tragic  poet,  244. 
Neoplatonism,  443  ff. ;  448 ;  451 ;  453 ; 

454  f. 
Nesto'rius,  Neoplatonist,  454. 
New  Comedy,  259  ff. 
Nican'der,  Alexandrian  didactic  poet, 

396. 
Nic'ias,  physician,  387. 
Ni'cocles,  King  of  Salamis,  in  Cyprus, 

334. 
Nome,  a  kind  of  lyric  poem,  89 ;  109  ; 

269. 
Non'nus,  late  poet,  author  of  Dionys'ia- 

ca,  455  f. 
■JVbs'toi,  epic  poem,  39. 
Novels,  438  f. 

Odys'seus,  12  ff. ;  22 ;  38 ;  39 ;  40. 

Od'yssey,  10  ff, ;  14  f. ;  41, 42 ;  140 ;  143 ; 
377;  399. 

QUdipodei'  a,  epic  poem,  41. 

(E'dipus  at  Colo'nus,  by  Sophocles, 
213  f. 

(E'dipus  the  King,  by  Sophocles,  210  ff. 

O'len,  mythical  poet,  8. 

Olym'pus,  early  musician,  88 ;  89  ;  90. 

Olyn'thus,  city  destroyed  by  Philip, 
343  ;  350. 

Onesic'ritus,  historian  of  Alexander, 
373. 

Onomac'ritus,  Orphic  poet,  144. 

Op'pian,  didactic  poet,  wrote  On  Fish- 
ing, 441. 

Oratory,  its  beginnings,  291  f. ;  Attic, 
322-356;  from  the  fourth  century 
b.  c.  to  the  second  century  after 
Christ,  429 ;  in  the  second  century 
after  Christ,  430  ff;  in  the  fourth 
century  after  Christ,  449  ff. ;  Chris- 
tian oratory,  455  ff. ;  457  ff 

Orestei'a  of  JSschylus,  198  ff.;  191; 
201. 


INDEX 


497 


Ores'tes,  son  of  Agamemnon,  40. 
Ores' tes  of  Euripides,  233 ;  223. 
Or'igen,  Christian  writer,  447. 
Ori'on,  lexicographer,  452. 
Or'pheus,  mythical  poet,  8  ;  143  f. ;  380. 
Or'pheus  of  Cro'ton,  mystic  poet,  144. 
Orphic  Argonau'tica,  456. 
Orphic  sect,  143  ;  144  f. ;  153. 
O'rus,  lexicographer,  452. 
Ov'id,  Latin  poet,  42 ;  398, 

Paeans,  107;  126;  131;  268;  383;  at 
Delphi  and  at  Epidaurus,  383. 

Pam'philus,  Christian  writer,  447. 

Pam'phus,  mythical  poet,  8. 

Panse'tius,  Stoic  philosopher,  404  f. ; 
403 ;  413. 

Pantomimes,  249. 

Panya'sis,  poet  and  man  of  letters,  267 ; 
57 ;  170. 

Parian  marble,  chronological  inscrip- 
tion, 219,  note. 

Par'is,  son  of  Priam,  11 ;  12 ;  37 ;  38. 

Parmen'ides  of  Ele'a,  philosopher,  156 
f. ;  155  ;  159  ;  160  ;  297. 

Parthenion,  107  ;  110  ;  131. 

Parthe'nius,  elegiac  poet  and  prose 
writer,  383. 

Paul  the  Silentiary,  poet  of  the  An- 
thology, 456. 

Pausa'nias,  periegete,  428 ;  375  ;  399. 

Payment  of  poets  and  actors,  185. 

Peace  of  Aristophanes,  254. 

Pe'leus ;  his  marriage  to  Tbe'tis,  11 ;  37. 

Peloponnesian  War,  its  history  by 
Thucydides,  273-278. 

Penel'ope,  wife  of  Odysseus,  15;  21; 
40. 

Penthesile'a,  Queen  of  the  Amazons, 
37. 

Per'gamum,  a  seat  of  Hellenistic  cul- 
ture, 360 ;  358. 

Perian'der,  tyrant  of  Corinth,  one  of 
the  Seven  Wise  Men,  148. 

Per'icles,  of  Athens,  160 ;  169. 

Peripatet'ic  School  of  philosophy,  320 
f.,  314 ;  361 ;  417. 


Peripetei'a,  change  of  fortune  in  trag- 
edy, 211 ;  231. 

Persae'us,  Stoic,  364. 

Persians  of  ^Eschylus,  193  ff. ;  191. 

Per'sius,  Latin  satirist,  413. 

Phae'do,  pupil  of  Socrates,  302  ;  308. 

Phae'drus,  Latin  writer,  86. 

Phan'ocles,  elegiac  poet,  382. 

Phanode'mus,  writer  on  Attic  history, 
290. 

Pha'on,  said  to  have  been  loved  by 
Sappho,  97. 

Phemon'oe,  Delphic  priestess,  8. 

Pherec'rates,  comic  poet,  251. 

Pherecy'des  of  Le'ros,  writer  of  gene- 
alogies, 167  f. 

Pherecy'des  of  Sy'ros,  early  prose  wri- 
ter, 149;  144;  152;  167. 

Philam'mon,  early  poet,  9. 

Phile'mon,  comic  poet,  263  f. 

Phile'tas,  elegiac  poet,  382 ;  360 ;  383  ; 
384. 

Phili'nus,  historian  of  Italy,  373. 

Phil'ip  of  Macedon,  342  ff. ;  334 ;  336  ; 
339  ;  350  ;  351 ;  355. 

Philippics  of  Demosthenes,  342  f. 

Philis'tus,  historian,  287. 

Phi'lo  the  Jew,  philosopher,  413  f. 

Philoch'orus,  historian,  371 ;  290. 

Phil'ocles,  tragic  poet,  243. 

Philocte'tes  of  Sophocles,  212  f. ;  223. 

Philola'iis,  Pythagorean  philosopher, 
163  ;  153. 

Philosopher,  meaning  of  the  word, 
149 ;  early  philosophers,  150-163. 

Philosophy,  its  tendency  in  the  sec- 
ond century  after  Christ,  416;  in 
the  third  century  after  Christ,  443 
f. ;  schools  at  Athens  closed  by  Jus- 
tinian, 455. 

Philos'tratus,  three  writers  of  the 
name,  436  f. 

Philox'enus,  lyric  poet  of  the  fifth 
century  b.  c,  270. 

Phoca'is,  epic  poem,  41. 

Pho'cion,  general  and  orator,  354  f. ; 
340. 


498 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Phocyl'ides,  elegiac  poet,  76 ;  77 ;  78 ; 

380. 
Phoenician  Women  of  Euripides,  233  f. 
Phor'mus,  Sicilian  comic  poet,  248. 
Pho'tius,  lexicographer,  452. 
Phryn'ichus,  comic  poet,  251. 
Phryn'ichus,  grammarian,  441. 
Phryn'ichus,  tragic  poet,  182  f. ;  243. 
Phry'nis,  poet  of  nomes,  in  the  fifth 

century  b.  c,  269. 
Phylar'chus,  historian,  373. 
Pi'gres,  epic  poet,  42 ;  44 ;  77. 
Pin'dar,  lyric  poet,  129-137;  110:  111 ; 

117;  119;  120;   121;  122;  123;  126; 

127;  138;  139;   201;  269;  308;  378; 

382. 
Pisan'der,  epic  poet,  41 ;  57. 
Pisis'tratus,  tyrant  of  Athens,  said  to 

have  caused  the  Homeric  poems  to 

be  edited,  24 ;  27 ;  ruler  when  Thes- 

pis  began  to  develop  tragedy,  181. 
Pit'tacus  of  Mytile'ne,  92  f. ;  97 ;  148. 
Planu'des,  added  to  the   Anthology, 

456. 
Platee'a,  taken  by  the  Thebans  in  373 

b.c,  338. 
Pla'to,  comic  poet,  251. 
Pla'to,  philosopher,  303-312 ;  261 ;  287  ; 

301;  302;  313;  314;  317;   334;  337; 

353 ;  361 ;  367  ;  368 ;  377  ;  378  ;  409 ; 

416 ;  419 ;  432 ;  435 ;  443 ;  444 ;  447  ; 

455. 
Plau'tus,  Latin  comic  poet,  262 ;  263 ; 

264;  266. 
Ploti'nus,  Neoplatonist,  443  f. ;  453. 
Plu'tarch,    essayist,      historian,    and 

philosopher,  418-422 ;  169;  375. 
Plu'tarch,  Neoplatonist,  454. 
Plu'tus  of  Aristophanes,  260 ;  254. 
Poetics  of  Aristotle,  318. 
Poetry  from  Augustus  to  Domitian, 

414;  from  Domitian  to  Constantine, 

440  f. ;  late  poetry,  455  f. 
Pol'emo,  Academic  philosopher,  312; 

361 ;  363. 
Pol'emo,  periegete,  375. 
Politics  of  Aristotle,  319. 


Pollux,  compiler  of  a  lexicon,  441  f. 
Po'lus,  sophist,  295 ;  307. 
Polyse'nus,  writer  on  stratagems,  429. 
Polyb'ius,  historian,  400-403  ;  374. 
Polyb'ius,  son-in-law  of  Hippoc'rates, 

164. 
Polyc'rates,  tyrant  of  Samos,  100 ;  101 ; 

117 ;  152. 
Poly'idus,  lyric  poet,  270. 
Polyphrad'mon,  tragic  poet,  243. 
Polysper'chon,  Macedonian  ruler,  355. 
Por'phyry,  Neoplatonist,  444  f. ;  443 ; 

453. 
Posidip'pus,  comic  poet,  266. 
Posidip'pus,  lyric  poet,  384. 
Posido'nius,    Stoic    philosopher    and 

learned  man,  404  f. 
Prati'nas,  tragic  poet,  182  f. ;  189 ;  243. 
Praxil'la,  lyric  poetess,  139 ;  138. 
Praxiph'anes,  Peripatetic,  395. 
Prizes  for  dramatic  contests,  185  f. 
Pro'clus,  grammarian,  36  ;  39. 
Pro'clus,  Neoplatonist,  454  f-  36 ;  39. 
Proco'pius,  late  historian,  453. 
Prod'icus,  sophist,  295 ;  297  ;  299 ;  307. 
Prologue  in  tragedy,  188;  in  Eurip- 
ides, 222. 
Prome'theus  of  JSschylus,  197  f. ;  191 ; 

201. 
Proper'tius,  Eoman  elegiac  poet,  382. 
Prophecy  by  the  Flight  of  Pirds,  poem 

ascribed  to  Hesiod,  57. 
Prose  literature,  reasons  for  its  late 

development,  147  f. 
Prosodion,  107 ;  131. 
Protag'oras,  sophist,   293;    294;    295; 

297;  298;  307. 
Ptol'emy  I,  So'ter,  historian  of  Alex- 
ander, 370 ;  356 ;  359 ;  378  ;  425. 
Ptol'emy  II,  Philadel'phus,  359 ;  875  ? 

387;  389. 
Ptol'emy  III,  Euer'getes,  376. 
Ptol'emy      (Clau'dius      Ptolema'us), 

mathematician,      astronomer,     and 

geographer,  442. 
Pyr'rho,  skeptic,  366  f. ;  443. 
Pyr'rhus  of  Epi'rus,  370 ;  373. 


INDEX 


499 


Pythag'oras,  philosopher,  152-154;  143 ; 
145;  149;  150;  159;  163;  361;  444; 
454;  Pythagorean  doctrines  in  the 
first  century  after  Christ,  413;  the 
Golden  Verses,  413;  mysticism  in 
the  third  century,  443. 

Pythagore'ans,  144;  152  f.;  163;  304; 
417. 

Pyth'eas,  voyager  and  geographer,  375. 

Quadra'tus,  Christian  writer,  445. 
Quin'tus  Smyrnse'us,  late   epic   poet, 
author  of  Posthomer'ica,  455. 

Religious,  oracular,  and  mystic  poetry, 

140-146. 
Returns  of  the  Heroes,  epic  poem,  39. 
Revival  of  Greek    literature    in    the 

second  century  after  Christ,  415  f. 
Rhetoric,  in    the  Attic    period,   271 ; 

292 ;  in  the  Alexandrian  period,  370. 
Rhetoric  of  Aristotle,  317. 
Rhetorical    arguments    in    Euripides, 

225. 
Rhia'nus,  philologist  and  poet,  398  f. 
Rhin'thon,  writer  of  farces,  385. 
Rhodes,  school  of  rhetoric,  360. 
Romances,  in  the  Alexandrian  period, 

379  f. 

Sach  of  Troy,  epic  poem,  39. 
Sap'pho,    lyric    poetess,    96-100;   92; 

102 ;  104  ;  105 ;  117 ;  383. 
Satirical  poems,  268. 
Satyr  drama,  235  ;  181. 
Scholia,  6 ;  378  ;  404. 
Scientific  works  of  Aristotle,  319. 
Scolia,  lyric  poems,  95 ;  268. 
Scopeli'nus,  flute-player,    teacher  of 

Pindar,  129. 
Scy'lax,  early  prose  writer,  166. 
Sen'eca,  Latin  writer,  404 ;  413. 
Sep'tuagint,  380. 
Seven    against    Thebes  of  iEschylus, 

195  ff. ;  191 ;  207. 
Seven  Wise  Men,  148  f. ;  77. 
Sex'tius,  philosopher  of  the  time  of 

Augustus  and  Tiberius,  413. 


Sex'tus  Empir'icus,  philosopher,  443. 
Shield  of  Her'acles,  Hesiodic  poem, 

55. 
Sib'yls,  141  f. ;  380 ;  Sibylline  Oracles, 

456. 
Sim'mias,  lyric  poet,  384. 
Sim'mias,  pupil  of  Philolaus  and  Soc- 
rates, 163 ;  308. 
Simon'ides  of  Amorgus,  iambic  poet, 

83  f. 
Simon'ides  of  Ceos,  lyric  poet,  119— 
123;  83;  110;   117;  124;  127;  129; 
131 ;  136 ;  137. 
Skepticism,  366  f. ;  443. 
Soc'rates,  296-301 ;  86 ;  244 ;  270 ;  279 ; 
285  f.;   291;    303;   304;   305;   307; 
308;  309;  310;  317;  334;  416;  425; 
ridiculed  in  the  Clouds  of  Aristoph- 
anes, 253. 
So'li,  city  in  Cilicia,  360. 
So'lon,  statesman  and  poet,  67-71 ;  72 ; 

77;  78;  93;  142;  148. 
Sophists,  292-296;  299;   meaning  of 
the  word,  149 ;  292 ;  sophists  of  the 
Roman  period,  430  ff. ;  442 ;  448  ff. 
Soph'ocles,  tragic  poet,  202-218;  177; 
189  ;  201 ;  221 ;  224 ;  225  ;  231 ;  240 ; 
241;  242;  243;  244;  252;  268;  270. 
Soph'ocles  the  younger,  243 ;  204. 
So'phron,  writer  of  mimes,  249. 
Sosib'ius,  writer  on  chronology,  371. 
So'sylus,  historian  of  Italy,  373. 
So'tades,  writer  of  farces,  385. 
So'tion,  Alexandrian  writer  on  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy,  377. 
So'tion,  philosopher,  413. 
Sources  of  information  about  Greek 

literature,  5  f. 
Speusip'pus,  Plato's  nephew,  philoso- 
pher, 312 ;  303. 
Sphae'rus  of  the  Bosporus,  Stoic,  364. 
Stasi'nus,  epic  poet,  37. 
State  of  the  Athenians,  not  by  Xen- 

ophon,  perhaps  by  Critias,  271. 
Steph'anus  of  Byzan'tium,  writer  of  a 
book  containing  geographical  and 
historical  information,  453. 


500 


GREEK  LITERATURE 


Stesich'orus,  lyric  poet,  114-117 ;  118 ; 
119;  121;  124. 

Stesim'brotus  of  Tha'sos,  logographer 
and  sophist,  169 ;  295. 

Sthen'elus,  tragic  poet,  244. 

Stil'po,  Megarian  philosopher,  302; 
361 ;  362  ;  366. 

Stobae'us,  compiler  of  an  Anthologium, 
452 ;  63  ;  413. 

Sto'ic  School  of  philosophy,  362  ff. ; 
403;  404;  405;  413  f. ;  416;  417; 
444;  (Stoa,  363;  365);  Stoic  doc- 
trines, 364 ;  423. 

Stra'bo,  historian  and  geographer, 
410  f. 

Stra'to,  Peripatetic,  321 ;  361. 

Stro'phe  defined,  90. 

Sublime,  Treatise  on  the,  attributed  to 
Longi'nus,  410 ;  98 ;  442. 

Su'idas,  compiler  of  a  lexicon,  452 ;  96 ; 
117. 

Suppliants  of  ^Eschylus,  191  ff. ; 
194. 

Suppliants  of  Euripides,  229  f. ;  225. 

Susar'ion,  early  comic  poet,  248. 

Syne'sius,  Neoplatonist  and  Christian, 
454. 

Syr'acuse,  120;  early  comedies  per- 
formed, 248  f. ;  mimes,  249 ;  impor- 
tance, 292 ;  in  the  Alexandrian  pe- 
riod, 360. 

Syria'nus,  Neoplatonist,  454. 

Tar'sus,  a  seat  of  culture,  360 ;  358. 

Ta'tian,  apologist,  446. 

Teachings  of  Chei'ron,  poem  ascribed 

to  Hesiod,  57. 
Telego'nia,  epic  poem,  40. 
Telem'achus,  son  of  Odysseus,  15 ;  21 ; 

40. 
Telesil'la,  lyric  poetess,  139  ;  138. 
Teles'tes,  lyric  poet,  270. 
Tennyson,  137. 
Ter'ence,  Latin  comic  poet,  262 ;  263  ; 

266. 
Terpan'der,    musician    and    poet   of 

nomes,  88  f. ;  92 ;  109. 


Tha'les,  philosopher,  151 ;  one  of  the 
Seven  Wise  Men,  148. 

Thale'tas,  lyric  poet,  109 ;  110 ;  119. 

Tham'yris,  early  poet,  9. 

Theatre,  186  ff. 

Theba'is,  early  epic,  41. 

Theban  cycle  of  epics,  40. 

Themis'tius,  late  sophist,  450  f. 

Themistog'enes,  nominal  author  of 
Xenophon's  Anabasis,  281. 

Theoc'ritus,  poet  of  idylls,  387-393; 
360 ;  382  ;  395. 

Theodec'tes,  tragic  poet,  245. 

Theod'oret,  Doctor  of  the  Church, 
460  f. 

Theodo'rus,  mathematician,  304. 

Theodo'rus  of  Gad'ara,  rhetorician, 
370. 

Theodo'rus,  the  atheist,  Cyrenaic  phi- 
losopher, 361. 

Theog'nis,  elegiac  poet,  71-76. 

Theog'ony,  of  Hesiod,  54  f. 

Theoph'ilus  of  An'tioch,  apologist, 
446. 

Theophras'tus,  Peripatetic,  321 ;  316  ; 
354;  361;  373;  376. 

Theopom'pus,  historian  and  rhetori- 
cian, 289  f. ;  245 ;  334  ;  407. 

Therip'pides,  guardian  of  Demos- 
thenes, 341. 

The'ron,  tyrant  of  Ac'ragas,  120 ;  130. 

The'seus,  poem  by  Bacchylides,  125. 

The'seus  and  th«  Youths,  poem  by  Bac- 
chylides, 125. 

Thesmophoriazu' soe,  of  Aristophanes, 
254. 

Thes'pis,  early  tragic  poet,  181  f. ;  248 ; 
existing  fragments  really  by  Herac- 
li'des,  245. 

Thirty  Tyrants  at  Athens,  326 ;  328. 

Thre'nos,  mourning  song,  120 ;  121 ; 
131. 

Thucyd'ides,  historian,  271-278 ;  169  ; 
176;  177;  282;  283;  287;  322;  324; 
342 ;  400  ;  402 ;  409. 

Timaa'us,  historian,  374;  402;  407; 
409. 


INDEX 


501 


Timae'us,  Pythagorean,  304. 

Tiinar'chus,  accused  iEschines  of  trea- 
son, 350. 

Timoc'reon  of  Khodes,  lyric  poet,  138 ; 
270. 

Ti'mon,  skeptic,  366  f. 

Timos'thenes,  admiral  and  geographer, 
375. 

Timo'theus,  Athenian  statesman,  334. 

Timo'theus  of  Miletus,  lyric  poet  of 
the  fifth  century  b.  c,  269. 

Ti'sias,  real  name  of  Stesichorus,  114. 

Ti'sias,  Sicilian  rhetorician,  292. 

Titanomach'ia,  epic  poem,  41. 

Trachin'ice  of  Sophocles,  209  f. 

Tragedy,  its  origin,  180  f. ;  derivation 
of  the  word,  181 ;  in  the  sixth  and 
fifth  centuries  b.  c,  181-244  ;  tragedy 
in  families,  243 ;  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury b.c,  244  f.;  243;  after  the 
fourth  century  b.  c,  245  f. ;  361. 

Transition  from  the  Alexandrian  to 
the  Eoman  period,  400  ff. 

Tro'ades  or  Trojan  Women,  by  Eurip- 
ides, 231 ;  225. 

Trojan  War,  11  ff. ;  37. 

Tryphiodo'rus,  late  poet,  456. 

Tyn'nichus,  lyric  poet,  138. 

Tyrran'ion,  grammarian,  publisher  of 
Aristotle's  works,  316  ;  404. 

TyrtaVus,  elegiac  poet,  64-66 ;  67 ;  72. 

Unities  in  the  drama,  188. 
Universe,  theories  concerning  its  ori- 
gin, 150  ff. 

Vale'rius    An'tias,    Latin    historian, 

409. 
Var'ro,  Eoman  writer,  362. 


Vico,  Italian  scholar,  24. 
Vir'gil,  39,  42  ;  116  ;  388. 

Wasps  of  Aristophanes,  252. 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  views  on  Homer,  24. 
Women  in  Homer,  21  ff. ;  in  Eurip- 
ides, 226. 

Works  and  Days,  by  Hesiod,  51-53. 
Writing  in  early  times,  33. 

Xan'thus,  lyric  poet,  114. 

Xan'thus  of  Lydia,  logographer,  168  ; 
167. 

Xenar'chus,  author  of  mimes,  249. 

Xen'ocles  the  elder,  tragic  poet,  244. 

Xen'ocles  the  younger,  tragic  poet,  244. 

Xenoc'rates,  Academic  philosopher, 
312;  313. 

Xenoc'ritus  of  Locri,  lyric  poet,  109  ; 
114. 

Xenoda'mus,  lyric  poet,  109. 

Xe'non,  Alexandrian  critic,  23. 

Xenoph'anes,  poet  and  Eleatic  phi- 
losopher, 154 ;  77  ;  155  ;  156. 

Xen'ophon,  essayist  and  historian,  271 ; 
279-287  ;  289 ;  290  ;  302  ;  333  ;  355. 

Xen'ophon  of  Ephesus,  novelist,  439. 

Xiphili'nus,  made  an  abstract  of  the 
history  of  Dio  Cassius,  427. 

Ze'no  of  Cit'ium,  founder  of  the  Stoic 
School,  362  f. 

Ze'no  of  Ele'a,  follower  of  Parmenides, 
157;  297;  312. 

Zenod'otus,  learned  Alexandrian,  377  ; 
360 ;  393. 

Zona'ras,  historian  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  427. 

Zo'pyrus,  Orphic  poet,  144. 

Zo'simuB,  late  historian,  453. 


THE  END 


